With Martin Scorsese’s psychological thriller, Shutter Island less than two weeks away from its release, the next thing everybody wants to know from the Scorsese camp is, what’s next? Read the full story

By Jordan Raup

I’ll admit it. I’ve never heard of Watchmen until Zack Snyder was attached to direct during the summer of 2006. Since I hadn’t read the graphic novel the hype started when I saw the trailer before The Dark Knight. I knew it was something special and after reading the graphic novel during the past couple months my hype increased tenfold. After the lawsuit fiasco got resolved it finally sunk in, I would actually be seeing this very soon. Only watching the trailers and select TV spots, the day finally arrived. From the first frame of Watchmen, as lush yellow completely engulfs the screen while the company logos pop in, eventually fading into that iconic pin, we just hope Snyder doesn’t screw this up. Don’t worry, he doesn’t.

Read the rest of the review >>

Variety reports Martin Scorsese is in talks with Benicio Del Toro (Che) and Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) to star in his next movie, Silence. The drama is set in the 17th century as two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and to spread the gospel of Christianity. Gael Garcia Bernal (Babel, Y Tu Mama Tambien) may also star. The film, based on the Shusaku Endo novel, which was adapted by Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York), has been on Scorsese’s radar for over 10 years.

This film sounds spectacular. Three of my favorite actors with my favorite director. Couldn’t ask for more.

Scorsese’s next film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island, comes out this October. Silence is expected for a late 2010 release.

Do you like the casting for Silence?

By Dan Mecca

I don’t know where this guy came from, but he is one of the best actors around right now, and if you can’t admit that than you are lying to yourself. It all started, in hindsight, with Wimbledon, a sassy little rom-com starring Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany. And who was Bettany’s younger brother? You guessed it! McAvoy was also the funniest part of the movie, providing laughs where there should not have been any, and playing off Bettany’s awkward charm with…more awkward charm.

And that’s what he’s got: charm. The guy’s a natural, most likely unaware of the depths of his facial expressions and weight of his words. As Carl Colt in Wimbledon, McAvoy played an endearing character, constantly betting (literally) against his brother (Bettany) to lose but rooting for him to win…no matter what the cost.

These terms of endearment would only expand with his next breakout role, that of Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Playing a faun, McAvoy served, once again, as the comic relief in a children’s movie that took itself far too seriously.

And, once again, his performance felt less like acting and more like being, as if McAvoy was always a faun, who just happened to be on set that day, armed with a handful of nice one-liners. Every scene he is in he steals from those wooden kid actors, making every viewer wish he would take their place.

All of this, however, is foreplay. Where McAvoy really broke out was in The Last King of Scotland, playing Dr. Nicholas Garrigan. As the young naive doctor, McAvoy found a dramatic voice not present in his earlier roles. Unfortunately, he was in a film geared not towards his performance, but that of Forest Whittaker and his calculated imitation of Idi Amin. Reminescent of Anthony Hopkins overshadowing Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs or Marlon Brando overshadowing Al Pacino in The Godfather, Whittaker distracts viewers from McAvoy, who carries the film on his shoulders throughout, allowing Whittaker to overact his way to a Best Actor Oscar. I only hope Forest thanked McAvoy for the assist.

But young James’ time will surely come. He anchored Atonement and made the intelligent romance Starter for 10 delightful, with considerable help from Rebecca Hall, another up-and-comer with ridculously natural acting chops. Hell, he even made it through Wanted without laughing, which is more than you can say for Morgan Freeman, who was clearly laughing all the way to the bank in that piece of shit. McAvoy even made waves in the 2003 BBC series State of Play, which has since been adapted into an American feature film starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck. And while the film sports a nice poster and trailer for its April 17th release, it has a huge problem: no James McAvoy.

McAvoy’s next film is Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station, a film based on Russian author Leo Tolstoy (the guy who wrote War and Peace). McAvoy is not Tolstoy and it looks like he is not the lead, which is refreshing in a way. Maybe he picked the film because he honestly liked the screenplay. The word on the street is that the film, as a matter of fact, is 2010 Oscar material. It appears McAvoy makes any movie he’s in better for it (see both Penelope and Becoming Jane), so I’m willing to bet we see McAvoy at the Academy Awards next year, if not nominated most certainly deserving.

Do you enjoy McAvoy’s performances? Do you see him growing as an actor?

Check out our other spotlights in our Articles section.

I feel like I have been defending Leo DiCaprio all year. But I also feel like he deserves it. Having finally seen Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, I feel almost unable to properly criticize it. Adapted from Richard Yates’ timeless, and extremely dense, 1961 novel, this film is fairly faithful to its source, primarily a satirical cautionary tale that ends in tragedy.

And while it is far from flawless, Revolutionary Road is interesting. Now, I know that reads like a dubious compliment, but I mean it, I truly do. This is an extremely thought-provoking piece of art that made me want to run out and find an excuse to stay with my friends so we could talk about it some more. Answers the “what” questions and breach the “why” questions.

And let me not forget that the performances are across-the-board incredible. In his review of the film in The New Yorker, David Denby wrote of DiCaprio’s performance as Frank Wheeler: “Frank is a liar, an adulterer, and a compromiser who betrays himself as much as his wife, but DiCaprio projects a natural heroic sweetness—it’s in his movie-star genes—which, in this case, is at odds with the character he’s playing.”

This is certainly true, but replace the negative critical tone with a positive one. Frank Wheeler, in both the book and the film, is a fickle man, swayed by other men and other men’s dreams, too scared to be confident in his own. In that inability there is an inherent tragic heroic-ness, and DiCaprio embodies it to perfection. However, Kate Winslet steals the show without a doubt. As April Wheeler, the veteran actress breathes an amount of life into her character not present in the book. While DiCaprio had much more material to work with the Frank character, it appears that Winslet decided simply to create her own form of the 50s housewife.

While the cinematography is faultless and the score (by the great Thomas Newman) is simple and effective, the direction can best be summed up in one word: professional. Mendes is something of a “method director.” It appears as though he falls in love with the story he’s telling and then goes out of his way to execute said story to perfection, leaving no room for error and, in turn, no room for spontaneity. And while this may have hurt a film like Jarhead, which examines the psychological breakdown of a soldier during peace in wartime, it helps this film, which is fueled on the absence of spontaneity.

Professionalism and all, this is still somewhat of a ridiculous film, and certainly heavy-handed throughout. Scenes screen as if Leo and Kate are on Broadway, or even back on the Titanic, the performing is so thick. Some members of the audience laugh out loud during scenes of anger and insults, quickly silenced as the fight rages on, sometimes for several minutes. But then, much like the widely-ignored Australia, this is a kind of extroverted acting not popular in today’s media. We tend to want our heroes brooding, tortured, tall, dark, and always handsome. The less they say the better. Too bad for DiCaprio, Frank Wheeler never shuts up. But then, how many people do you know like that?

Whether you appreciated the performance acting or not, this is a harsh look at the American Trap, a.k.a. “settling down.” Mendes (and one wonders if Yates knew when he wrote it) knows this trap is timeless, and knows the prevalence of it today. Sure, this is a suburbs mellodrama, but it is not ABOUT the suburbs. In their 1/13/09 review of the film on the /Filmcast, the guys over at slashfilm.com were quick to point out the far-fetchedness of the story and the resolution, deeming it a suburban worst-case scenario of sorts. And that it is. But is that not part of what a satire’s purpose is? Granted, this is certainly not a traditional satire and, in many ways, not one at all. However, as a whole the film mocks the American Trap and warns against it, much in the same way Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead did, following along the basic rules of satire and adding a poignant dose of reality. It asks the question: What if you abide by all of society’s rules? Even if you know they’re wrong?

Young people should see this film right now. It will haunt you out of your seats and force you consider yourself next to the characters on-screen, and I imagine you’ll find yourself praying that you are most comparable to the only “crazy” character in the whole film, John, played convincingly by the criminally underrated Michael Shannon.

Kate Winslet’s April asks the first question: “Who made these rules?”

Mendes leaves it up to the viewer to ask, and answer, the second: “Why follow them?”

Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer (Superman Returns), tells the undeniably interesting true story of Nazi Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder) and his attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler and quell the destruction of the Nazi party. Starting with a bang (and some beautiful cinematography courtesy of Newton Thomas Sigel) in the African desert, Stauffenberg loses his left eye and right hand. Upon his recovery, the colonel is recruited to conspire against the furor.

Unfortunately, this is, more or less, where the protagonist’s character development stops. Likewise, the film falls into one gear for the next 40 minutes, didactically explaining the conspirators’ plan to kill Hitler. While informative, it lacks enough narrative excitement to maintain a keen interest through to the final hour, which is made up almost entirely of the plot being put into effect. The person to blame for this lull in action is screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (writer/director of the under-appreciated The Way of the Gun), who clearly reasearched this moment in history thoroughly but forgot, during the first-half of his screenplay, to dramatize the story for the screen. Where McQuarrie drops the ball Singer picks it up, providing luscious visuals to chew on throughout. His use of focus and close-up work wonders for the aesthetic, creating a sense of subtle urgency throughout most of the film. Certain shots will stay with viewers after the final credits, a rarity for Hollywood films with larger budgets (this film was reported to be in between $75 and $90 million). The man also knows how to direct a scene, offering some of the most nerve-racking dramatic action on screen this year (see the assassination sequence).

Along with Singer’s directorial eye, John Ottman editing stand out, far and away, as the two best reaons to see the film. Ottman paces the film beautifully, cutting in the middle of action consistently and rarely letting the viewer linger from one scene to another. Ottman’s editing is the only aspect of this film worth serious Oscar consideration. Ironically, Ottman’s score is one of the film’s weakest points. Overwrought when in use and unused in scenes that drown in silence. Along with the misplaced score is the oddly off-key acting, which is nearly universal throughout the cast. One of the few to rise above this criticism is veteran actor Terence Stamp, one of the most underrated players working today. Kenneth Branagh’s presence is wasted in an pivotal but nearly invisible role, while the usually-reliable Tom Wilkinson phones in his performance as General Friedrich Fromm.

As for Cruise, he tries really hard to be Stauffenberg, and not Tom Cruise. Unfortunately, the celebrity that is Tom Cruise proves too big for Cruise to overcome. The actor fails to transform himself the way he did in Tropic Thunder earlier this year. It feels as though Singer did not quite know what he wanted his actors to convey and, in turn, the actors struggled to convey much. They are simply historical mouthpieces telling a great story the world should be aware of.

SIMPLY PUT: A well-made, mediocrly-acted, hot-and-cold political thriller that is hot more than it is cold. And for those who thought this would garner Cruise an Oscar nom or some significant acting cred, you are wrong. Sorry.