Aside from the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, there weren’t a lot of major announcements this week, with only a handful of noteworthy news pieces.
The biggest cinema releases – for Aussie screens – were probably Observe and Report and Angels and Demons. If you’ve managed to catch either of those movies feel free to leave a comment below and tell us what you thought (stay tuned….or logged… to Movie Nation for our review on Observe and Report).
Along with some small news pieces we’ve also seen the release of some brand spanking new trailers. So let’s have a look shall we?
The Road trailer
Starring Viggo Mortenson and Charlize Theron, The Road is a post apocalyptic thriller/drama. I’m not sure when it is set, but needless to say most of the earths population seems to have disappeared. The basic plot outline goes something like this: A man and his son as they do whatever is necessary to survive in a post apocalyptic world. Their goal – to reach the coast – does not make a lot of sense and they aren’t sure what they’ll find once they arrive. But they’ve got to have some sort of goal, right?
I’m a huge fan of apocalyptic stories and this trailer looks amazing. From what I hear, it’s quite an emotional story as well. Can’t wait to see it.
There is no official Australian release date for The Road yet, although it’s due to screen this October in the US.
The Princess and the Frog Trailer / Poster
What? You’re reporting on a Disney movie!? I hear you shout, and I’ve got two replies. First of all, you’ve got some nerve telling us what we can and can-not report on. Secondly, The Princess and the Frog is the first 2D animated film to come out of Disney since Home on the Range in 2004 (the less said about that film, the better). With 3D animation knocking down all sorts of box office records, many have concluded that the classic hand drawn process of animation is extinct. Well, it isn’t.
As a huge animation buff I’m extremely excited to see what Disney can produce with this movie, it’s quite beautiful to see this stunning art form back on the big screen again. Here we’ve got the trailer and the poster, which the folks over at cinematical.com managed to get their hands on.
You’ve got to love the way Disney can instantly win you over with nostalgia. The Princess and the Frog will leap onto Aussie screens on the 26th of December.
Gamer Trailer
Gamer looks as though it will fit nicely into the catalogue of work from writer/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. For those of you who don’t know, they’re the guys who brought you Crank and Crank 2 – High Voltage, a couple of movies that play out almost like ‘real life’ video games. Gamer seems to be the next logical step for these guys. Set in the future where humans control other humans in a massive gaming arena, the catch? The players within the arena are convicts, all they have to do is win a certain number of times and they’re home free!
It’s going to be a lot of loud fun, plus with Gerard Butler in the lead role, it’s almost impossible this movie won’t fulfill your action expectations.
No word on a release date for Gamer yet, but it looks as though it’ll be around September/November.
Whatever Works Trailer
Let’s take a quick break from Hollywood for a second to look at a smaller film, one that just so happens to have a lot of big names attached to it. Whatever Works is the latest Woody Allen film to finish production. Starring Larry David (co-creator of Seinfeld and genius behind Curb Your Enthusiasm), it looks as though it’s going to be a hilarious, neurotic, touching look at the life he leads and the relationships he builds. Take a look below.
No release date for Whatever Works. Unfortunately, I think it’s a long way off an Australian release.
And in other news…
Cannes heading UP!
The 62nd Cannes Film Festival began this week, and with quite an impressive opening. For the first time in it’s history, the festival opened with an animated feature, none other than Pixar’s Up. Word of mouth is already spreading with critics calling it another hit for Pixar, some suggesting that it is their best film to date. Is it possible those guys will ever make a bad film? I really don’t think so.
It’s a shame then, that Australian audiences won’t get to see the movie until the 3rd of September, when it was originally slated to be released in June!
Speaking of Pixar…
It’s been rumored that the hotly anticipated trailer for Toy Story 3 will be attached to Up in cinemas. I certainly hope this is true, because it means we will be getting it online at around the same time, and the US release is only a few short weeks away!
Where the Wild Things Are blog
If you haven’t seen the trailer for Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are you need to minimize this window right now, and watch it.
I’ll wait…
Okay, you’ve seen it now? Pretty impressive right? Mr Jonze recently created a blog for the movie. It’s updated pretty regularly and has a lot of information on the creative process Jonze is undergoing to create the film, as well as his general thoughts on everything Wild Things related. You can check it out here.
More Basterds on the way?
Quentin Tarantino recently spoke with the New York Times about his next film Inglorious Basterds (yep, that’s you spell it). He had something interesting to say regarding another film set in the same universe:
“I have a half-written prequel ready to go if this movie’s a smash.”
Apparently the story of this prequel would follow a group of African American soldiers, stuck behind enemy lines. A subplot cut from the original film.
Scorsese and Sinatra
It’s been revealed that Martin Scorsese has announced that he’s signed on to direct a biopic based on the legendary singer Frank Sinatra. There’s not a whole lot known about the project at this stage, but with Scorsese behind the camera, it sounds pretty promising to me.
Scorsese is currently in post-production on his latest film Shutter Island, which sounds all sorts of awesome.
A Christmas Carol poster
Disney has released the poster for Robert Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol. Starring Jim Carrey as pretty much everyone on earth, it was filmed with the motion capture that Zemeckis seems to have a fetish for. I’ve got my hopes up because I’m a big fan of his work, but frankly I think it’s extremely disappointing that he has all but given up shooting live action movies. Where is the guy who gave us Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump and Cast Away? I’m hoping Christmas Carol will be a return to form.