cinema reflections
'Finding Neverland' movie: Johnny Depp as James M. Barrie a.k.a. J.M. Barrie, with the Llewelyn Davies family: Kate Winslet, Freddie Highmore, Joe Prospero, Nick Roud and Luke Spill. 'Finding Neverland' movie review: Losing reality Back in 2001, German-born director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, World War Z) brought a much welcome non-Hollywood touch to the independently made psychological drama Monster's Ball. Besides the daring (if […]
'Maze Runner 2: The Scorch Trials' with Dylan O'Brien. 'Maze Runner 2' to beat Johnny Depp 'Black Mass' The 20th Century Fox release Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, the sequel to the 2014 hit The Maze Runner, and Warner Bros.' Johnny Depp star vehicle Black Mass will be battling it out at the North American box office this coming weekend, Sept. 18-20, the last (astronomical) […]
'Alice in Wonderland' 2010: Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. 'Alice in Wonderland' 2010: Plenty of visuals, no substance In the interest of full disclosure, I should start this commentary on Alice in Wonderland by saying that I have never been a fan of Tim Burton's works. I've enjoyed a couple of his movies, but the vast majority of them I've found uninspiring and, really, […]
'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' with Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' review: Mostly an enjoyable romp Pirate movies were a Hollywood staple for about three decades, from the mid-'20s (The Sea Hawk, The Black Pirate) to the mid-to-late '50s (Moonfleet, The Buccaneer), when the genre, by then mostly relegated […]
'Despicable Me 2' Despicable Me 2 easily tops domestic box office as 'The Lone Ranger' 2013 bombs July 8, '13, update: Here's a quick rundown of the July 5-7, '13, top twelve movies at the North American box office, according to studio estimates found at Boxofficemojo.com. As expected, the $76 million-budgeted Despicable Me 2, featuring the voices of Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig, easily topped […]
Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger, Johnny Depp as Tonto. The Lone Ranger Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean quasi-sequel in Western garb In highfalutin' acting circles, it's said that American performers are trained to work from the inside out, crafting a character's inner life before working on external traits, like voice and clothing. Conversely, British actors are said to work from the outside in, […]
Kristen Stewart. Kristen Stewart, Johnny Depp win 2013 Kids' Choice Awards Kristen Stewart and Johnny Depp were two of the film category winners at the green-slime-infested 2013 Kids' Choice Awards held at the University of Southern California's Galen Center south of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, March 23. Kristen Stewart was chosen as favorite movie actress and female butt-kicker of the year, apparently for her […]
Magic Mike: the “male stripper movie" Shirtless Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Alex Pettyfer, and Matthew McConaughey are featured in the red-band Magic Mike trailer. (Please scroll down.) Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) directed this (romantic?) comedy about strippers. Yeah, male strippers. But is the “male” qualifier really necessary? Talk about (anti-male) sexism… Now, the red-band Magic Mike trailer shows more chest and ass than its […]
Marvel 'The Avengers' movie vs. 'The Dark Knight' June 29 update: Starring Scarlett Johansson (photo, as Black Widow), Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr, Tom Hiddleston, and Jeremy Renner, Joss Whedon's The Avengers movie has officially surpassed Titanic's original box office take. Back in 1998, James Cameron's romantic epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart, and a gigantic iceberg cumed at […]
San Francisco with Jeanette MacDonald and Clark Gable Brad Bird's film adaptation of James Dalessandro's novel 1906, about San Francisco at the time of the 1906 earthquake, will definitely not be coming out in 2012. It's not that the editing or the score isn't ready. The screenplay is yet to be written, according to an interview with Bird posted at ifc.com. Bird explains: “I mean, […]
Nov. 13 update: At no. 5 on the domestic box office chart this weekend, Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar raked in $11.47 million – at the very lower end of expectations – as per studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo. The J. Edgar Hoover biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover, Armie Hammer as his associate and intimate companion Clyde Tolson, and Naomi Watts as FBI […]
Amanda Seyfried, Justin Timberlake, In Time Assisted by costlier 3D tickets, Paramount/DreamWorks Animation's Puss in Boots may gross $36-$38 million this Halloween weekend, after taking in an estimated $9 million at 3,952 locations on Friday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That would break Saw III's $33 million Halloween record of five years ago (not adjusted for inflation/3D surcharges) – though it would still be a […]
Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush in Rob Marshall's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides The Lone Ranger is still not a go, but Deadline.com reports that producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski have come up with a more modest budget “in the $215 million range” for the Western to star Johnny Depp and The Social Network's Armie Hammer. That's down from the project's original […]
Leonardo DiCaprio was the highest-paid actor from May 2010-May 2011, according to Forbes magazine. Last year's winner, Johnny Depp was down one spot at no. 2. Though both DiCaprio and Depp began their film careers appearing in mostly offbeat fare, their megamillions have absolutely nothing to do with daring professional choices: DiCaprio's estimated $77 million came courtesy of Christopher Nolan's Inception and Martin Scorsese's Shutter […]
Kevin McNally and Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides May 26: Featuring Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush, Sam Claflin, Ian McShane, and Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Rob Marshall's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides added $4.7 million at the North American box office on Wednesday, May 25, according to Box Office Mojo. In all likelihood, On Stranger Tides had its last […]
Jamie Campbell Bower, Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street The National Movie Awards are a sort of British version of the People's Choice Awards. This year's winners included popular favorites Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 as Best Fantasy Film, The King's Speech as Best Drama (beating out Black Swan, The Social Network, and 127 Hours), and Colin Firth […]
Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener Rachel Weisz, Oscar winner for The Constant Gardener, may join Rob Marshall and Johnny Depp in the Warner Bros. remake of The Thin Man. Depp is set to play dipsomaniac detective Nick Charles; according to reports, Weisz is being considered for the role of Nick's equally dipsomaniac partner in crime-solving, Nora Charles. William Powell and Myrna Loy became […]
Red Riding Hood with Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez March 18 update: If the North American box office was sleepy on Wednesday, it was snoring on Thursday, March 17. Perhaps the blame should be placed on St. Patrick's Day, as most people surely chose partying over moviegoing. Every single movie was down on the top-twelve chart, even though generally box office figures are up on […]
Anne Hathaway in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland The Costume Designers Guild (CDG) was supposed to announced their nominees on Jan. 21 (that's what it says on their site) – but apparently they opted to make their 2011 shortlists public one day early. Nominees for the 2011 CDG awards include the expected, e.g., The King's Speech, Alice in Wonderland, Black Swan, and even Burlesque, and […]
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Inception The BFCA voters usually get it right, e.g., The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, Sean Penn for Milk, Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight, The Departed, Helen Mirren for The Queen. At times, the Oscars take a weird turn and the BFCA gets it wrong, e.g., Brokeback Mountain in 2005, Kate Winslet's unexpected Best Actress – instead of Best […]
People's Choice Awards' winners 'Grown Ups' and actor Adam Sandler: Computer virus infection? The People's Choice Awards are supposed to be about the will of the people. And as so often happens, the people have chosen fare the “cultural elites” despise. Case in point is Adam Sandler's Grown Ups, selected as The People's Favorite Movie Comedy while Sandler himself took home the People's Choice Award […]
Golden Globes' omissions: The absence of megastar Leonardo DiCaprio for his performance in either Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island or Christopher Nolan's Inception was this year's biggest surprise. After all, the Golden Globes are well known for their fixation on movie stars. Governments around the globe & Golden Globes' omissions & inclusions: Politics (mostly) at play It's all about politics. Silvio Berlusconi, despite having every single […]
The Tourist with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's costly and widely panned spy caper has become a domestic box office bomb; yet there's a chance Columbia Pictures' late fall release will be more enthusiastically received internationally. The Tourist was budgeted at a reported $100 million. Golden Globes box office effect? 'The Tourist' & 'Burlesque' up more than 20 percent following nominations […]
William Powell, Myrna Loy, Asta, After the Thin Man Personally, I find it hard to picture Johnny Depp in the old William Powell role of the witty, sophisticated, dipsomaniac former gumshoe Nick Charles. But according to The Hollywood Reporter, Depp and Rob Marshall, currently working on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, will in the not-too-distant future start working on a remake of MGM's […]
April 2 update: Featuring the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, and America Ferrera, How to Train Your Dragon was back at the top of the North American box office chart on Thursday. The animated 3D fantasy grossed $5.24 million (up 16 percent), according to Box Office Mojo. Down one slot, The Last Song earned $4.26 million (down 17 percent) at #2. The […]
'Alice in Wonderland' with Mia Wasikowska: Girl in blue dress and white rabbit smash several box office records. 'Alice in Wonderland' characters smash box office records March 7 update: Despite wildly mixed reviews, Alice in Wonderland has shattered a number of box office records after grossing $116.3 million this weekend (March 5–7), scoring a fantastic $31,196 per-theater average at 3,728 sites according to official studio […]
Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley has been set to star opposite Cannes Film Festival winner Christoph Waltz in The Talking Cure, a new film about Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, according to various online reports. Waltz, 53, has received numerous accolades in the United States for his performance as a vicious, multi-lingual Nazi in Inglourious Basterds (right), Quentin Tarantino's World War II drama that is a […]
The Hurt Locker? Carey Mulligan? Jeremy Renner? The White Ribbon? Or … Twilight? If the Academy decides to listen to The People, they might want to find ways to nominate instead Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Taylor Swift, Mariah Carey, Taylor Lautner, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Ashton Kutcher, Daniel Radcliffe, Miley Cyrus,and Ellen DeGeneres. And make sure to bring Bela Lugosi back from the […]
'Public Enemies' with Johnny Depp. In Michael Mann's period crime drama Public Enemies, Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger, the Depression Era bank robber who became the top target of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Christian Bale plays Dillinger's nemesis, investigator Melvin Purvis; Marion Cotillard is Dillinger's gal, Billie Frechette; and Billy Crudup is Hoover the (Gay?) Man. (Previously, Leonardo DiCaprio had been connected with the project.) […]
Marion Cotillard Photos: Richard Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S. (Cotillard) Marion Cotillard. Photo: Armando Flores (Cotillard). See below more images from the 2008 Oscar ceremony – including what looks like a mighty embarrassed Tilda Swinton, Best Supporting Actress winner for Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton, taking part in an four-way Oscar statuette smooching. Marion Cotillard: Best Actress Oscar winner for 'La Vie en Rose.' Among Marion Cotillard's […]
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly with Marie-Josée Croze: Golden Globe Awards' non-ceremony eyebrow-raiser. Based on Jean-Dominique Bauby's book of memoirs – reportedly written after Bauby (1952–1997) suffered a stroke that left him totally paralyzed except for his left eyelid, which he used to communicate (and thus “write” the book) – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly unsurprisingly topped the Golden Globe Awards' Best Foreign Language Film category. […]
AFI FEST showcases Heath Ledger in Casanova: Chaos in Hollywood area. AFI FEST 2005: 'Casanova' movie chaos The worst thing I can say about the 2005 edition of the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival a.k.a. AFI FEST 2005, is that it ended – with a mix of bangs and whimpers – on Nov. 13. Nov. 22 update: The “whimpers” were a result of both […]
J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan. The five sons of Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, particularly Michael, were the real-life inspiration for Peter Pan – the flying, satyr-like, Neverland denizen who refuses to face the dredge of adulthood. But there seems to have been another inspiration for Peter Pan after all: author J.M. Barrie himself. “There never was a simpler and happier family [than the Darlings] […]
Johnny Depp family movie Finding Neverland. Directed by Marc Forster, and starring Johnny Depp as Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie and Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, the audience-friendly, truth-distorting period piece Finding Neverland was the National Board of Review Awards' Best Film winner. Making his screenwriting debut, David Magee adapted Allan Knee's play. Crowd-pleasing Johnny Depp family movie tops National Board of Review Awards […]