Ridley Scott’s ‘The Counselor’ Trailer

UK Release Date: 15th November 2013

Stars: Ridley Scott (director), Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, John Leguizamo.

Plot: A lawyer finds himself in over his head when he gets involved in drug trafficking.

Brad Pitt seems to really be getting back on the horse and making some really good films after a quiet few years of his career. With 12 Years a Slave (also starring Michael Fassbender) out at the height of Oscar season, this all star cast hits cinemas later this year.

As this serves only as a teaser trailer there is not a lot of the plot released within the minute that we see, but what we do see is very intriguing: what is the motorbike murder about? what exactly does Michael Fassbender do? where does Brad Pitt fit into all of this? And what is going on with Javier Bardem’s hair?

Tony Scott (June 21, 1944 – August 19, 2012).

Director Scott sadly passes away aged 68.

Sad reports among the news today for the world of movies as the famous director Tony Scott has been reported dead after jumping from a bridge in Los Angeles. His death is being investigated as a suicide. It is a horrible loss as he has directed a number of box office successes and big action films while forming strong partnerships with some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Originally from North Shields in England, Tony Scott is the less famous and less critically successful brother of director Ridley Scott. But despite his films being less favourable with critics he is a celebrated and talented director nonetheless. A common criticism of his work was that he sacrificed story for things that looked great on screen and big action sequences but this obviously went down well with fans of movies and some of his films became huge successes and some of the most famous films of all time.

Tony Scott’s most famous film is of course Top Gun and whether you like it or not you cannot deny it’s place in movie history and popular culture (although more for its homoerotic tendencies than for its quality of film). Top Gun put Tony Scott on the map and he went on to direct a number of even more successful movies including Beverley Hills Cop 2 which became a massive success at the box office making nearly $300million off just a $20million budget. Scott worked again with Tom Cruise (after Top Gun) on Days of Thunder which many critics called ‘Top Gun in cars’ but despite the negative reviews Days of Thunder was another box office smash for Tony Scott.

The list of huge name actors that Tony Scott has worked with is seemingly endless: Tom Cruise, Eddie Murphy, Kevin Costner, James Gandolfini, Gene Hackman, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, Mickey Rourke, Christopher Walken and the Oscar winning composer Hans Zimmer. But with all these big names it seemed that Tony Scott enjoyed working with Denzel Washington the most as the pair made a total of five films together (with ranging success): Crimson Tide, Man on Fire, Deja Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123, Unstoppable.

A winning partnership: Scott and regular collaborator Denzel Washington.

Whether you like his films or not he is a huge loss to the directing world and he had a big effect on mainstream action films that is still felt today. Critics didn’t praise his films too often but I bet they all enjoyed them as did most people who watched his work. He was a great director (I really like Top Gun, Enemy of the State and The Taking of Pelham 123 in particular) and my thoughts go out to his family.

Is Michael Fassbender Really That Good?

Michael Fassbender is one of the hottest properties in Hollywood right now and over the last few years he has really shot to the forefront of the movie industry. With his choice of films he has really shown that he has a fantastic range of skills and is a very versatile actor. The short answer to the question ‘Is Michael Fassbender really that good?’ is simply Yes; but feel free to continue reading if you want the longer answer.

Fassbender first rose to prominence on television where one of his first main roles was on the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced mini series Band of Brothers which received hugely positive reviews and brought plenty of publicity for the cast. Fassbender continued to work in television with another critically acclaimed television series, this time British: Murphy’s Law.

The first big film that Michael Fassbender featured in and set the sparks in motion of the fire that Michael Fassbender was soon to light Hollywood up with was 300, a fantasy action film directed by one of my favourite directors Zack Snyder. It’s not a film that many people would instantly think of when trying to list Michael Fassbender’s movies but it started off something big in the movie industry. Fassbender won over critics at the Cannes film festival in 2008 with Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen.

But it was thanks to Quentin Tarantino that people were really forced to sit up and take notice of Michael Fassbender. Inglorious Basterds is one of Tarantino’s best films and Fassbender features in one of the best scenes in the movie in my opinion. This film came out in 2009 and overshadowed the small British film that Michael Fassbender also featured in in the same year: Fish Tank. Fish Tank is the story of a rebellious teenage girl growing up on a run down council estate living with her alcoholic mother and tearaway younger sister. Michael Fassbender is the creepy love interest of the mother and manages to pull off a kind of safe but sinister paedophilic character scarily well. To this day this is my favourite role I have seen Fassbender in although it is one of his least well known but the performance he puts in is nothing short of sensational.

If 2009 was one of Michael Fassbender’s best years in films then 2010 was definitely one of his worst. Perhaps high on the success of Inglorious Basterds Fassbender made some rather, well… questionable choices. He appeared in Centurion and the horribly tragic comic book adaptation of Jonah Hex, both films making a loss. Probably a year that Fassbender wouldn’t like to dwell on anytime soon. But these failures didn’t put him off or seem to put him out of favour with movie big wigs.

2011 brought several Michael Fassbender films to the forefront without making people sick of him. Fassbender took up the part of Edward Rochester in an adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre (one of the greatest stories ever written, end of story) for which he received a lot of praise. Another comic book movie, with a lot better fate than his last one, gave Fassbender huge success and stability as it comes with a several movie contract. X-Men First Class is the movie and Magneto is the character; although at times Fassbender seemed to get complacent and his accent slipped back to Irish it was overall a great performance and Fassbender proved yet again how good he is at playing a conflicted and bad natured character. This movie reunited Fassbender with his old Band of Brothers co star James McAvoy.

A Dangerous Method followed starring Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley which was about the relationship between psychologists Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. Fassbender then reunited with director Steve McQueen for Shame, which is probably his most critically successful film and role which won Fassbender a number of awards at film festivals and awards ceremonies and picked him up even more nominations. He then returned to mainstream cinema with Haywire which saw him co-star with names like Ewan McGregor and Antonio Banderas.

This year, 2012, Michael Fassbender only has one film slated for release after a busy twelve months. This comes in the form of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. After recently seeing this I was not a huge fan of the film but as a fan already of Michael Fassbender I was excited for his performance and I was not left disappointed by him. Fassbender, for me, is the stand out performer of the cast and the only really memorable character or performance from the cast. There is no doubt that Fassbender is set for a huge and successful career in my opinion and he deserves it.

Is Michael Fassbender really that good? Yes.

Prometheus Reviewed

***Minor Spoilers Ahead***

 

“Prometheus, are you seeing this?” asks Noomi Rapace’s character scientist Elizabeth Shaw and yes I saw it, but there is a huge difference between seeing something and enjoying it.

Prometheus is an indirect prequel to the Alien series. This film focuses on a team of explorers who discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth that leads them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. Sounds interesting.

As mentioned, Noomi Rapace leads this cast that really manages to pack in the noticeable names: Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Rafe Spall and even a small part for Patrick Wilson. With so many experienced cast members being directed by the hugely acclaimed (although in my opinion drastically over rated) director Ridley Scott big things were expected from everyone, especially taking into consideration the success of the Alien film directed by Scott himself.

The film opens with a series of long, wide and very scenic landscape shots and this is a theme that the film will follow throughout and every time we see a large shot of the planet that our heroes find themselves on it looks fantastic; the directing and camerawork means that Prometheus is incredibly pleasing on the eye with some of the best environmental shots I’ve ever seen. The special effects follow suit and are so real that it doesn’t matter how far in the future the crew of Prometheus (the ship which the film is named after) are, it feels and looks as though it could happen today, the effects are believable.

Unfortunately Prometheus has one huge flaw and one that I can not look past: every single one of those characters lacked any kind of personal motivation; their actions seemed uninspired. Noomi Rapace’s character, the main character, spends the first half of the film doing not a lot at all and then spends the second half running away from things and holding her stomach all the time. And this is who you are supposed to empathise with and support, not really your traditional hero. I couldn’t have cared less about her partner, whoever he was and Charlize Theron’s character was ridiculously under used to the point where it seemed like if you took her out of the film no difference would have been made.

In fact, the only character that I felt was worth watching, partly because of the portrayal of the actor, was David, the non human member of the crew portrayed eerily well by Michael Fassbender. Another good performer among the cast was Idris Elba, relatively new to big budget films after carving his career out on television but deserves all the success that comes his way, although killing off his character just seemed like something to do rather than having any impetus behind it.

A stand out scene is when Shaw gives birth to an alien life form and while the rest of the film around that moment seems rather boring this scene is anything but! She doesn’t have a lot to do everywhere else but here Noomi Rapace earns her salary hands down; the trauma and pain her character is going through comes across excellently on screen. Sometimes, poor films or films you don’t enjoy have one glimpse of brilliance and this is Prometheus’. I would go so far as to say this is one of the best scenes I have ever seen in the cinema.

Does Prometheus live up to expectations? Not really.

Is Prometheus an enjoyable sci-fi film? Ish.

Would I watch it again? Not for a while.

My Rating: 5/10.

I really wanted to give it a higher rating but I just couldn’t justify it.

Latest Iron Man 3 Casting Rumours

The release of The Avengers is nearly upon us and now Iron Man 3 will be the next film that Marvel fans have to look forward to. Recently, there has been a lot of discussions about Iron Man 3, who will be in the film and who will be the villain are the main topics of debates among fans and moviegoers.

Ben Kingsley has been strongly linked with an unknown role. Rumours are that he could play Iron Man’s most famous villain, the Mandarin. This villain is the one that Jon Favreau has claimed that he was working towards but it is unknown if this is the direction in which Shane Black will be taking his vision of the film. There is no doubt that Kingsley would be a great addition to the cast but if he was cast as Mandarin I could see this pleasing a lot of fans who hope to see the famous bad guy on the big screen.

The latest casting rumour to circle on the net states that Guy Pearce is close to signing on to play geneticist Aldrich Killian. In the comic books Killian co-creates the Extremis technology and Iron Man 3 will be loosely based on the Extremis storyline. Pearce has recently returned to big budget films with Lockout and is set to star in Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus. Anyone who has seen Memento knows that this guy can act and I would certainly look forward to seeing him in Marvel universe.

Iron Man 3 is being written and directed by Kiss Kiss Bang Bang creator Shane Black and will certainly star Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and of course Robert Downey Jr. If these two actors do join the cast it could be Marvel’s best cast ensemble to date (minus The Avengers).