News of the Week (05/09/12) – Michael Clarke Duncan, The Hobbit and Metal Gear Solid

After the tragic loss of action director Tony Scott a few weeks ago this is another sad week for Hollywood. The incredible Michael Clarke Duncan has sadly passed away just two months after suffering a heart attack that he never really fully recovered from. It’s horrible news especially considering the fact that news reports have emerged that Duncan and his reality television personality girlfriend planned on getting married next year and had talked about having children together. Michael Clarke Duncan is best known for his role in The Green Mile which he was Oscar nominated for but he also starred in Sin City, The Green Lantern and Armageddon.

In other news there is yet another film in pre-production about former American president Abraham Lincoln. This follows the unique take on the 16th president Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and the upcoming Steven Spielberg biopic starring the hyphenated cast of Daniel Day-Lewis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt entitled Lincoln. The title of the new film is The Green Blade Rises and will be directed by Terrence Malick. In the past Malick has taken long gaps between his films but his schedule seems to be pretty busy for the next two or three years. It’ll be interesting to see whether the success of Spielberg’s Lincoln affects this new take positively or negatively, if even at all.

Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln

As many people will know by now The Hobbit has been announced as a trilogy and there has been a release date and title change for the films. The first part, out later this year, will still be named An Unexpected Journey. The second instalment will be titled The Desolation of Smaug to be released around Christmas 2013 whilst the third and final (for now) chapter adopts the name There and Back Again (originally the title for the second film) and will hit summer 2014.

Michael Bay continued to ruin childhoods this past week. He managed to anger Transformers fans when he continued to make each film worse than the previous one and then angered Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans by deciding their new origin would be that they are aliens from another planet. Now the terrible explosion happy director has had to come out and deny that the leaked script for the new TMNT film is actually the final one because everyone who is anyone has been slating it and saying how awful it is. Michael Bay has a lot of work on his hands and is quickly becoming very very unpopular among movie fans and anyone with taste.

I actually enjoyed the most recent CGI outing of TMNT.

Finally, it has been in the pipeline for some time but it has now been announced that Metal Gear Solid, the hugely successful video game, is to be adapted into a film. Avi Arad, who has produced almost every single movie about a Marvel character, will be producing the film. Metal Gear Solid has already been integrated into a hilarious comedy routine by Dara O’Briain but will it be turned into a film just as good? The main problem is who should play main character Snake? Some of the names being touted around fan forums so far include Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Bradley Cooper and Sam Worthington. The favourite and specifically mentioned by the games creator Hideo Kojima seems to be Hugh Jackman. I think Jackman would be a great choice as he can clearly pull off being a bad ass like he has done in the X-Men films playing Wolverine. But if they are to get Jackman they need to start moving forward with the project soon before he gets too old.

Is Matthew McConaughey Finally Taking His Acting Career Seriously?

Matthew McConaughey is a pretty big name actor if you think about it. If you think of romantic comedies then his name will be one of the first few you associate with the genre, along with Jennifer Aniston and Katherine Heigl. Funnily enough, if you also think of plain bad films (and I’m talking really bad, not bad but enjoyable, just bad) then Matthew McConaughey must also be synonymous with that too! He does however, have a huge legion of fans, mainly of the female gender and probably because of his looks rather than his acting ability, but you would be hard pressed to find a man who counts Matthew McConaughey among their favourite actors. Now it looks as though that may be set to change as McConaughey opts for more dramatic roles than we are used to seeing him in.

McConaughey began work as an actor in television adverts and the rare television episode appearance but then he got his big break back in 1991 in Dazed and Confused. Maybe, and I never thought I would say this, McConaughey put in a performance that was too good, because this is pretty much what made him a shoe-in for any male lead role in a romantic comedy. As an actor you don’t want to get pigeon holed into one genre but as a young emerging good looking man then you are always going to be wanted for romantic comedies (the same happened for Chris Pine and Chris Evans in recent years although not to the same extent).

Throughout the nineties Matthew McConaughey tried out many different genres including crime (A Time to Kill), drama mystery (Contact) and action (The Newton Boys) but didn’t have as much success in these as he did with his romantic comedies and at the turn of the century McConaughey really started to churn out the rom-coms. In 2001 McConaughey starred in The Wedding Planner alongside Jennifer Lopez and although he continued to try and be versatile with his career it is his rom-coms in this decade that are his most famous films: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Fool’s Gold and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

Now though, there seem to be no signs of Matthew McConaughey returning to make another romantic comedy as he has taken on more serious roles in recent years. This began with McConaughey taking on The Lincoln Lawyer which was a thriller that received great reviews from critics and McConaughey won high praise for his performance in the lead role. Killer Joe, a crime thriller in which McConaughey plays a contract killer/police detective, also won a lot of praise; then Magic Mike came out which also got surprisingly positive reviews from critics. Next up for Matthew McConaughey is Mud, which is already getting a lot of praise from early screenings and that is a drama so it appears that Matthew McConaughey is taking on more serious roles recently and these are really helping his reputation.

McConaughey’s next film project will be another drama The Dallas Buyer’s Club before taking on war film Thunder Run alongside Gerard Butler and Sam Worthington, two more actors who have a lot to prove in my opinion. McConaughey’s recent film choices do signal a more serious approach with his career and this can only be good news. I hope he succeeds.

 

Good & Bad News for Film Fans – The Hobbit, Fast Six & a Surprise Sequel?

There has been a lot of movie news this week and there is a lot that I am interested in around directors, casting news, sequel announcements but all of these things come with fans and haters. As such, there have been a few announcements made that I am not too happy about. So let’s start with the bad things:

“But Mr. Jackson, this contract just says two films?”

As we know, Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit has already been split into two parts, the first will hit cinemas this year with the second chapter following in 2013. Fans were already a bit skeptical about this money making move because of the lack of material in Tolkien’s original book but now they are set to be angered even more. Peter Jackson, director of The Hobbit, has announced that The Hobbit will be a trilogy with the material from the third film thought to be coming from Tolkien’s appendices (the final chapter) of Return of the King, so not exactly The Hobbit is it? Peter Jackson needs to be careful with his Lord of the Rings treatment otherwise he will become as hated by his own fas as George Lucas by the Star Wars fans.

In 1987 Masters of the Universe was made with Dolph Lundgren. In recent years there have been rumours that the film will be remade and it appears that headway is being made. I would be interested in seeing this as I grew up watching He-Man and the Masters of the Universe on tele. However, the news that Jon M. Chu is in talks to direct is what has me worried. Chu’s most famous directorial outings to date are Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D; he also directed the absolutely disgusting, despicable, outrageous, vomit inducing concert biography that i’m not even going to mention on here but look it up if you’re interested. He is known for having dance in his movies and says this is because “dancers motivate me the most” but lets hope we don’t see He-Man and his friends breaking into street dancing when fighting Skeletor.

Avatar became one of the highest grossing films of all time when it was released in 2009 and since then James Cameron always said there would be more sequels but it has been delayed and delayed. Some people expected a 2012 release, then it got pushed back to 2013, 2014 and now the latest news has it slated for a 2015 release. Will they ever get made? Will Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana be able to reprise their roles when the sequel eventually moves forward? Let’s hope so.

Avatar is one of the most visually stunning films ever!

And now the good!-

The next instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise has announced its next new cast member after Gina Carano, Luke Evans and Clara Paget have all been added. It has now been confirmed that Joe Taslim will be joining Vin Diesel and company for Fast Six or whatever it ends up being called. Taslim starred in The Raid: Redemption that received great reviews and showcased that Taslim has a talent for action films.

Here is the news that so many film fans have been waiting for. There have been a few comments made by important people this week that could indicate that a sequel is in the works for one of the funniest film series’ I have ever seen one of the most enjoyable action series’ that I have ever seen and introduced one of the on screen duos with so much chemistry that work surprisingly well together. RUSH HOUR 4 may well be on the cards!! That’s right, Rush Hour 4!!

There aren’t enough words to describe how excited I am for a new Rush Hour film!

Earlier this year, Jackie Chan suggested that he would be quitting action movies.. what he  clearly forgot to mention that he has since said is that he does not want to quit until he has made a Rush Hour 4. Chris Tucker is also back on the big screen this year after a five year hiatus and is clearly feeling the time is right for him to get back into the world of acting. Now producer Arthuer Sarkissian has dropped the biggest hints yet that a fourth film will be on the cards. At the Television Critics Association press tour Sarkissian said that he is already working on a fourth film with both Tucker and Chan! He said that he was not too happy with how the third film turned out but what he wanted to do was make a fourth seem more real, put the two characters in a different world (Sarkissian cited Fast Five as a template of how to do this) and also introduce two new characters. Could Chan and Tucker be passing on the franchise to two new actors? For now, who cares?! Let’s just get Rush Hour 4 out right now!!!

Man On A Ledge Review

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

I had my reservations about seeing this film: the title is lazy, the cast doesn’t excite me at all and the trailers did absolutely nothing to sell this film to me. However, I really wanted to go to the cinema today and the only film on in the time slot available was Man On A Ledge, so I ended up watching it, and I have to say, despite it’s flaws, it surprised me.

Sam Worthington plays Nick Cassidy, a cop turned convict, who has escaped from prison and is now the man on a ledge, protesting his innocence and wanting everybody to know that he is innocent. But whilst the police are negotiating with what they think is a suicidal man Nick’s brother, Joey Cassidy (Jamie Bell) and Joey’s girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are using this cover to attempt a robbery from a building across the street in order to steal a diamond which Nick has supposedly stolen, cut down and sold on. Therefore, stealing this diamond would prove Nick’s innocence. Got it?

So I guess we have to talk about the acting, unfortunately. Sam Worthington is again given the lead role in a movie and again puts in an average to poor performance. Up until his character actually has something to do Worthington doesn’t really do enough to keep the audience interested in his character. I still like Jamie Bell from his days in Billy Elliot and I really do think he is a talented young actor but I think he needs to be wiser when choosing which films to appear in; his performance is below par and I was really hoping for something stronger from him. And as for Genesis Rodriguez, she is apparently only there to provide an eyeful of cleavage and to get a few shots of her body in the film to keep men interested. It’s as if the makers of this film doubted they could keep the attention of the audience themselves. The one bright spark in this film though, both in character story and portrayal, is Lydia Mercer played excellently by Elizabeth Banks and quite frankly I was interested in her character and her scenes a lot more than any other character of this film.

The story doesn’t really offer up anything we haven’t seen before. It plays out with a lot of back story, trying to create some mystery for the audience, but it fails. From the fight at the funeral I managed to guess every single twist the film had in store and I don’t want to be able to do that when I’m seeing a film for the first time! The film does pick up, however, once Nick is forced to run from the attempts to get him off the ledge and the sequence with him running around the edge of the hotel before jumping through a couple of windows was very enjoyable, as were the rest of the action scenes. Okay, so there’s a few things that are VERY unbelievable (when he jumps from the building, lands on the pad at the bottom and then manages to still get the diamond from Englander for example) but they can be overlooked in this film as it clearly isn’t trying to take itself seriously by this point.

And as for the ending… it seems very rushed and very ‘Hollywood’. One minute the film is still going on, he’s just got the diamond back, he’s proved his innocence, what’s going to happen now? Oh right, you’ve got the girl, you go to a pub and another twist is revealed that I managed to guess the second time of seeing that character. Well, thanks for that. And as for the proposal at the end… give me a break! The relationship between Joey and Angie made me cringe all the way through the film, the pair clearly had no chemistry and it just seemed forced.

But if you can overlook the bad acting and the routine story then you will enjoy this film as it does have a lot to enjoy. Just make sure you don’t go expecting to see something that’s going to make you think.

My rating: 5/10