Stephen Fry does it all. He writes, acts, speaks, blogs -- basically, he's putting us all out of jobs. His latest role will be that of an ordinary human, albeit one who gets to hang out with hobbits and dwarves and dragons.
Compared to the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbitwas always a lighter adventure, a prequel meant for younger readers as a segue into the epic, dark experiences of the Fellowship of the Ring and their quest to Mordor. Keeping with his past trilogy, it's likely that Peter Jackson's upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit will keep the same grim tone, but with recent casting additions, there may be room in the film for a bit more comedy.
According to Peter Jackson's official Facebook page, British comedian/writer Stephen Fry has been cast in the film as the Master of Laketown. Bilbo Baggins and his posse of dwarves are welcomed to the town by the Master, who's real intentions are driven by greed and weakness.
Jackson and Fry have a previously relationship, spending a good part of the last decade working together on a remake of the 1955 war film The Dam Busters. Now Jackson's expanded his relationship with Fry, bringing him into theHobbit fold in a role that could be more substantial than the original text would have you believe, now that the source material is being broken into two parts.
For those unfamiliar with Fry, or simply need a reason to love this bit of casting, watch this:
Jackson also updated with a few more casting additions, including relative unknown Ryan Gage as the Master of Watertown's slimy servant Alfrid and Conan Stevens as the orc Azgog. Jackson posted a picture of himself and Stevens on set, to give you an idea how tall this lumbering actor really is (Jackson is aroundn 6'5"). Not someone you want to mess around with.
The Hobbit is a strong contender for a panel at SDCC this year, so keep your eyes peeled for official announcements soon.
The trippy sci-fi festival favorite from an alternate 1983 lands a distribution partner.
Panos Cosmatos' Beyond the Black Rainbow, the only memorable film from this year's Tribeca Film Festival, has landed a distribution partner. And it is the right partner.
Our friends at Magnet Releasing, the sociopaths who brought us Rubber and Hobo With a Shotgun and Black Death and the upcoming Trollhunter, announced the deal the other day at the Cannes Film Festival. It was swallowed by the news of Lars von Trier being a douche but, much like the insidious nature of this otherworldly film, the message has still seeped out.
Beyond the Black Rainbow is an endurance test - an intensely slow movie, focused on eerie tone over plot. It bathes in the aesthetic of late '70s and early '80 science fiction, like a visit to EPCOT on some really bad LSD.
No timetable for VOD or theatrical release has been announced.
Below is the festival trailer. If this doesn't turn you on, then you and I really have nothing to say to one another.
Check out my review of Beyond the Black Rainbow from the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Bridesmaids scene-stealer is doubling-down with two new comedies.
When I first reviewed Bridesmaids I was so swept up with Kristen Wiig's performance (the best film comedienne since Madeline Kahn) that there were few column inches left to talk about the other performances.
As I exited the SXSW premiere, however, I recall saying to friends that "if it were a just world, Melissa McCarthy would be starring in films of her own."
Well, there's nothing like a movie overshooting its estimates (it made $25 million at the box office this weekend) and receiving near-universal praise to make miracles happen.
Deadline reports that McCarthy is teaming with Bridesmaids co-writer Annie Mumolo on a quest movie to steal the Stanley Cup for her dying husband. The husband will be played by McCarthy's actual husband, Ben Falcone, who plays the object of McCarthy's affection in the soon-to-be-if-not-already airplane scene in Bridesmaids.
What disgusting things are in store for this noble vessel?
Entertainment Weekly is also reporting that Bridesmaids director Paul Feig is setting up a project for McCarthy to star in. Nothing is yet known, except for the quote pulled in The Film Stage's article, "“If an actress like Melissa becomes a huge star? THAT is a world I want to live in.”
McCarthy uglied herself a bit for the role in Bridesmaids, but no matter how you slice it she has "unconventional Hollywood looks." To that end, we must all do what we can to support Ms. McCarthy and her career. Because she's really effing funny and we need more of that.
What's scarier than a haunted house? TWO HAUNTED HOUSES!
Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson and their three young children have just moved into a big, old home. He's a teacher and she doesn't work, so immediately I assumed there was some deal with the devil to make the down payment, but this was just my mind playing tricks. The young baby does nothing but cry and one night the eldest sees something, makes a spooky face, then goes to sleep and NEVER WAKES UP. He's not in a coma, he's just. . .in limbo. Rather than making the cover of the New England Journal of Medicine with this indescribable condition, they just send the kid home. And then the craziness starts. I can't lie, the first few scares got my heart rate up. There are demonic sounds on the baby monitor and, even though I was thinking "here comes the scary part, here comes the scary part" when something finally jumped out, I yelped like a frightened puppy. I can't recall seeing a movie that relied as heavily on loud, dissonant piano notes on the sound track as much as Insidious. Director James Wan (the first Saw movie and follow-up garbage he'd rather you not remember) either doesn't trust us or doesn't have the chops to allow creative framing or tense perspective shots to deliver the scares. Either way, I found I did most of my crying-out not because anything truly frightening was happening on screen, but because something REALLY LOUD JUST CRASHED IN MY EAR. I certainly wasn't involved in the plot in any way, which is a shame, because I think a comotose, house-bound child is fertile soil from which a genuine horror film can grow. After Byrne sees enough weird visions she gets the family to relocate. The scares keep coming in house two, making us all wonder what the hell kind of realtor they're using. There's a twist, of course, and a too-late attempt at humor in the form of some goofy ghost hunters. Once the "truth" is revealed, however, only the audience members willing to suspend their disbelief to the point they could wrap it around the circumference of Jupiter will keep from checking out. So this is what's in store for you in Insidious: a real moronic supernatural horror film that exploitatively uses startling tactics to get in four or five decent jump scares. If you are a high school kid on a date, go see Insidious. If not, go take a run or finish that Dostoyevsky novel you keep putting off.
Tina Fey socks it to Will Ferrell in this deleted scene from Dream works Animation's Mega mind.
Even in a modern, 3D, computer animated film there are things that hit the editing room floor. Only they do it more expensively than any ofther type of film imaginable. This sequence from Megamind shows TV reporter Roxanne Ritchie (Tina Fey) really sockin' it to Will Ferrell's Megamind for slaying Brad Pitt's Metro Man.
I won't lie and call this a laugh riot, or even all that visually appealing, but for we obssessive completests out there, you need to watch this or you'll know, for the rest of your life, there's a part of Megamind you didn't see and it will drive you crazy.
Christina Aguilera's new movie, 'Burlesque,' continues a long tradition, from 'Jailhouse Rock' to 'Purple Rain' to 'The Bodyguard,' of singers starring in films for which they also dominate the soundtrack. Which got us thinking about singers who have defined the sound and spirit of an entire film without ever appearing onscreen. Here are 15 of our favorite examples of singers whose voices alone are like an uncredited main character. 'Magnolia' (1999) Aimee Mann 'Magnolia' director Paul Thomas Anderson didn't just want Aimee Mann's music playing in the background; he let her lyrics shape some of the film's characters and even took the unusual step of injecting her songs directly into the narrative. At one point, the entire cast drops everything to sing 'Wise Up' from start to finish.
'Good Will Hunting' (1997) Elliott Smith In an apparent bid to make the sad parts of 'Good Will Hunting' 10 times sadder, director Gus Van Sant reached out to fellow Portland, Ore. resident Elliott Smith. Along with three older songs, Smith contributed 'Miss Misery,' which earned him unexpected fame and an Academy Award nomination. Tragically, Smith didn't share Will Hunting's Hollywood ending, but his music earned a much-deserved place in history.
'The Graduate' (1967) Simon and Garfunkel Director Mike Nichols was at odds with the studio over the film's music, as well as Nichols' choice for the role of Mrs. Robinson. (He wanted the French actress Jeanne Moreau.) Forced to pick his battles, Nichols stuck with Simon and Garfunkel. Smart move, because their songs, especially 'Mrs. Robinson' and 'The Sound of Silence,' helped the film capture the confusion and alienation of an entire generation.
'Juno' (2007) Kimya Dawson When director Ivan Reitman asked Ellen Page what music the film's characters would listen to, she told him to check out the Moldy Peaches. So, Peaches singer Kimya Dawson, whose twee "anti-folk" songs evoke the joy of being young and too smart for your own good, ended up all over the movie, including the closing scene: Page and Michael Cera duetting on the Peaches' 'Anyone Else but You.'
'Harold and Maude' (1971) Cat Stevens These days Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) doesn't seem like the natural choice for a darkly comic cult classic about a 20-something guy falling in love with a 79-year-old woman. But in the early 1970s, cheery, up-with-people folk tunes like 'If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out' and 'On the Road to Find Out' were the perfect accompaniment to the film's "be who you are" message.
'Dan in Real Life' (2007) Sondre Lerche This thinking-man's romcom, in which Steve Carell's sad-sack widower raises two daughters and searches for love, walks the fine line between lighthearted and heartbreaking. Which is also a pretty good description of Sondre Lerche's music. The Norwegian singer-songwriter's combination of quirk and sensitivity on songs like 'To Be Surprised' keep 'Dan' from getting too goofy or sinking too low.
'Away We Go' (2009) Alexi Murdoch Sensitive singer-songwriters and indie movies about sensitive people-two great tastes that taste great together. British neo-folkie Alexi Murdoch gave heartstrings a good, hard tug with his music for Sam Mendes' 'Away We Go.' Even the film's trailer made a big splash, thanks to Murdoch's 'All My Days' (a song that had already inspired waterworks on episodes of 'The O.C.' and 'Grey's Anatomy').
'Super Fly' (1972) Curtis Mayfield To say that no one could imagine Gordon Parks Jr.'s 'Super Fly' without Curtis Mayfield's music would be something of an understatement. The fact is, many (if not most) of the soundtrack's fans have never even seen the movie; album sales far outstripped the film's take at the box office, and classics like 'Freddie's Dead' and the title track helped define not just the movie but the entire blaxploitation genre.
'The Virgin Suicides' (1999) Air Sofia Coppola's soft-focus vision of 1970s suburbia includes plenty of period music by Heart, Styx, ELO and others, but it's the dreamy swoon of the French duo Air -- especially 'Playground Love' and the main theme, 'Highschool Lover' -- that really gives the film its, er, air of melancholy nostalgia.
'About a Boy' (2002) Badly Drawn Boy The songs in 'About a Boy,' in which an emotionally stunted bachelor befriends an awkward teenager, were the work of Badly Drawn Boy, the stage name of singer-songwriter Damon Gough. Gough must have done something right, because Nick Hornby, who wrote the original novel 'About a Boy,' even included an essay in his book '31 Songs' about how much he was affected by Badly Drawn Boy's song 'A Minor Incident.' Got all that?
'Wonder Boys' (2000) Bob Dylan On top of Bob Dylan classics like 'Buckets of Rain,' 'Wonder Boys' included the singer's brand-new track 'Things Have Changed,' featuring a world-weary vibe and a central lyric, "I used to care but/Things have changed,' that perfectly capture Michael Douglas's character, Grady, a once-promising writer who's been stoned and stuck on his second book for years. Unlike Grady, Dylan still had the magic touch; The song won him a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
'Maximum Overdrive' (1986) AC/DC When gazillion-selling horror writer Stephen King sat down in the director's chair for the first (and, thankfully, last) time, he asked his favorite band, AC/DC, to bring the noise. A movie about homicidal trucks on the rampage calls for a fairly muscle-bound soundtrack, so the band lent some of its biggest hits and recorded an original song, 'Who Made Who,' that is unquestionably the film's high point.
'She's the One' (1996) Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Edward Burns's winning romcom got a major assist from its Rick Rubin-produced soundtrack of original Tom Petty songs. The collaboration was a success all around: The film's signature tune, 'Walls (Circus)' (featuring Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham on backing vocals) garnered Petty his only charting single of 1996, and the film garnered Burns the last good reviews of his career.
'Into the Wild' (2007) Eddie Vedder Eddie Vedder's songs had already been used in two movies featuring Sean Penn ('Dead Man Walking' and 'I Am Sam'), so when Penn decided to direct 'Into the Wild,' he immediately brought in the Pearl Jam singer. Given Vedder's penchant for anti-corporate earnestness, he seems like an obvious choice for a film about someone giving up his possessions and disappearing into the Alaskan wilderness, and these rootsy, meandering songs don't disappoint.
'To Live and Die in L.A.' (1985) Wang Chung William Friedkin's sleek, sun-soaked action flick about a reckless Secret Service agent on the mean streets of Los Angeles is so totally '80s it makes 'Miami Vice' look timeless, and Wang Chung's music deserves a lot of the credit/blame. Recorded in a mere two weeks, the songs, especially the mini-hit title track, are just as slick and jaded as the movie ... so roll up the sleeves of your turquoise blazer and enjoy.
