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Leonardo DiCaprio's upcoming thriller Shutter Island looks like a strange movie, but even DiCaprio knows that when it comes to puzzling flicks, Inception beats all. Neither trailer so far has been able to shed light on director Christopher Nolan's "architecture of the mind" movie. In an interview with Inquirer, DiCaprio admitted that the movie's complex storyline was confusing even to the cast and crew.
I don't know what I'm allowed to say about Inception. I don't even know what I'm allowed to say about Shutter Island, to be quite honest. Both Chris and Martin [Scorsese, director of Shutter Island] are great directors. The material and its complexity are what I'm attracted to. I'm not happy if I don't have a lot to do. I've been lucky to work with people who want to tell stories that hit on different cylinders simultaneously. Shutter Island is definitely that. Inception is the same. It is Chris delving into dream psychoanalysis and, at the same time, making a high-octane, surreal film that came from his mind. He wrote the entire thing, and it all made sense to him. It didn't make sense to many of us when we were doing it. We had to do a lot of detective work (laughing) to figure out what the movie was about.
At least the cast isn't a mystery. DiCaprio plays Jacob, while Marion Cotillard plays his wife. Ellen Page plays Ariadne, a grad student and DiCaprio's sidekick, Michael Caine plays a science professor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays DiCaprio's associate, and Ken Watanabe plays Saito, the villain of the movie.
Inception opens July 16, while Shutter Island releases February 19.
Posted 02.09.10 by Ryan -
Indianapolis cannot be stopped! They make a 96 yard drive for a second score. They've put up 10 points now in the first quarter!
And we've now got the Shutter Island spot for you're viewing pleasure. It's a mysterious little ditty with Leonardo DiCaprio that is much too hard to explain, so take a look at the trailer and see if YOU can figure it out.
Posted 02.07.10 by reelz -
Hey all you movie fans who also love football! It's close to kick-off time, and the Colt's are favored by 5 against the Saints. We'll be blogging the movie trailers during the game, so stay tuned to learn who paid $2.5 million per spot to hype their flick.
Early reports say three studios have coughed up some big bucks for their big-ticket movies. Disney is showcasing Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Jerry Bruckheimer's video game movie Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Universal isn't saying what it spent its millions on, but we can guess that it'll be for The Wolfman and Robin Hood. Finally, Paramount will air a TV spot for Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island during the game, with a pregame slot for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender.
(Queen Latifah is crooning America the Beautiful now, and Carrie Underwood will sing the National Anthem.... Get READY!!!)
Conspicuously missing from this list is the sure to be blockbuster of May, Iron Man 2. Why Paramount decided to leave this one out is a wonder. Of course, there are bound to be some surprises, so stay tuned and we'll load them all up here at Reelz.com when they come online. In the meantime, here is the first one we've already found for you...
(New Orleans calls heads and wins the toss. They will recieve! More movie trailers on their way.)
Posted 02.07.10 by reelz -
At a group press conference promoting Shutter Island, Ben Kingsley noted something unexpected emerged during the making of the movie — affection.
It's not the sort of description you would expect based on the movie's trailer, or even more from the Superbowl spot. In those previews, the nightmarish suspense surrounding a woman's disappearance from a, frankly gothic, asylum overwhelms everything else. But, Kingsley insists, there is more here than meets the eye.
And what you perhaps don't see on the page, and even when we were reading it together in the hotel room, Leo [DiCaprio] and I and Mark [Ruffalo], what did emerge was an extraordinary level of tenderness between the characters that actually even though it's — as Leo pointed out — it looks, if you see the trailer, like a thriller — the glue that holds it together is varying levels of tenderness, uh, for your wife, for your child, for your patient, for your friend. Uh, and that is an ingredient that you can't rehearse, you can't anticipate, is always surprising, and can only be brought to film by the director. So our great journey was making something out of nothing, and on the way discovering, tenderness.
Director Martin Scorsese concurs, suggesting that this is the case even for the doctors, who don't exactly come off that way in the trailer, to say the least.
I guess — I think one of the key elements here is that if you care about the person, and I think what Sir Ben said is really right in the sense that one of the things that I was so surprised about to discover ultimately — I knew it but I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't verbalize it — is the love or the caring, the tenderness that he has for the patients. And they all do. And the relationship between the patient and the doctor. And at times stern, at times you don't know what he's thinking, where he's going — why he's saying certain things, why he's behaving a certain way. Is he really telling the truth or not. You don't know. But ultimately underlying all of this is this very strong relationship of believing in this therapy…
None of this is, of course, to deny that the movie is in fact the thriller it has been billed as. There is clearly a hidden, and likely malign, agenda at work on the island that is driving investigators into some pretty strange territory on the border of drug-induced madness. But, taking Kingsley at his word, there is something else to look for in it as well.
Posted 02.05.10 by reelz -
Unsettling images are on parade in the new TV spot for Martin Scorsese's retro-noir thriller Shutter Island. The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo as a pair of U.S. Marshals sent to investigate the disappearance of a woman at an Alcatraz-like asylum for the criminally insane.
The 30-second commercial, which is scheduled to air during the Super Bowl this weekend, opens with DiCaprio being welcomed to the island but, from the look of things, that's pretty much the last vestige of comfort he is likely to get. After that, it's all nightmarish staccato flashes of half-glimpsed terrors and a doctor's voice ominously intoning, "Men of violence are my specialty."
Of course, men of violence have long been Scorsese's specialty as well. But the build up is as important as the delivery, and in a couple of recently released behind-the-scenes videos we can see the legendary director at work on some of the relatively quieter early scenes in Shutter Island, before events have gotten too terribly disturbing.
Posted 02.03.10 by reelz -
Writer-producer Laeta Kalogridis is building a Hollywood resume that would make anyone in the industry jealous. After getting her start writing and producing the short-lived DC Comics-inspired Birds of Prey TV series, Kalogridis graduated to feature movies by writing the screenplays for Alexander and Pathfinder.
While those movies underwhelmed at the box office, Kalogridis had the distinction of joining James Cameron as executive producer of the box-office juggernaut, Avatar, which just took the top spot for the 7th week in a row. And, if that alone isn't enough to make her one of the most important women in Hollywood today, Kalogridis wrote the screenplay for and is executive produced Martin Scorsese's latest film, Shutter Island.
In a recent interview with MoviesOnline, Kalogridis spoke about her upcoming projects and what is was like working with two of the most esteemed directors in the history of cinema.
Well, it's very much apples to oranges because they are such different people. I have to say Avatar has been such a rewarding experience. I mean, I wrote Shutter Island while we were filming Avatar. That's how long Avatar has been going on. I've been doing Avatar for 4-1/2 years. In terms of working experience, I can certainly say that one of them was longer and I can also say that ... I mean, I love Jim. I love Jim. I've actually been working with him off and on for a little over 8 years now and we've written two other scripts together. It was different primarily in that obviously the personalities of the two directors are very different, but they're both exceedingly focused perfectionists with very singular visions. So, in that way, it's similar. But obviously, in terms of their directing style, they're just very different men. I tell people I'll never have another year like the year where I got to work with both of them. I'll never have another year like that because everything about both experiences was wonderful for me.
Back in October, it was announced that Kalogridis had been hired to write the screenplay for Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks' big-screen adaptation of the popular Ghost in the Shell manga (Japanese for "comic book"). Kalogridis confirmed the news and said that her screenplay was based more on the original source material than on any of the subsequent adaptations.
Ghost in the Shell was originally the manga. The anime came from the original graphic novel and then — and that anime, as you know, is a relatively famous, groundbreaking piece of material — also generated two seasons of an animated television show as well. And this is an adaptation of the original manga, the original comic book that sort of began everything.
Kalogridis also shared that she is writing a "fun horror movie" called Demonkeeper that will be aimed at a wider audience than her more latest movie.
It's certainly not a hostile kind of horror movie. It's a little bit of a — in my mind anyway — a throwback to the really fun movies when I was a kid, those great Amblin films like Gremlins. I mean, you know, just the really wonderful kind of family movie that you can take [the kids to] that has the scary stuff for kids but that everyone can enjoy. I have children so I really like the idea of something we can all go see together. Shutter Island would not be that movie.
Posted 02.01.10 by BrentJS -
The Hollywood Foreign Press will bestow its honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award to Martin Scorsese during the Golden Globes on January 17, according to Variety.
Scorsese, who is a few days from his 67th birthday, is responsible for several movies legendary for their gritty, sometimes expressionistic, portrayals of violence. These include Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and GoodFellas.
He also crafted many underrated gems that explored various social and cultural issues. These include The King of Comedy (the obsessions of celebrity culture), The Last Temptation of Christ (a non-Gospel, first-person telling of Jesus's internal struggle), Kundun (the life of the Dalai Lama), and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (the trials of single-motherhood).
The DeMille Award recognizes the lifetime achievement of various actors and directors. Recent recipients include Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams, and Al Pacino. Earlier recipients include Walt Disney, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, and Alfred Hitchcock, among others. You can see the complete list of winners here.
During his career, Scorsese twice won the Golden Globe for Best Director (for Gangs of New York and The Departed), so the award thankfully won't seem like a consolation prize. As many of you probably remember, fans were bitterly disappointed when the Oscars did not award Scorsese its directing award for Gangs of New York, going instead with Roman Polanski and The Pianist.
Thank goodness Scorsese finally won for The Departed. Now, any lifetime achievement award he wins at the Academy Awards won't feel like adding insult to injury, some conciliatory gesture that says, "Sorry we never gave you the real thing, but here ya go."
Scorsese's next release is Shutter Island, which arrives on February 19, and he is also at work on Sinatra and The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, both due sometime in 2011.
Posted 11.13.09 by reelz -
Originally scheduled to have opened this past weekend, Martin Scorsese's gothic thriller Shutter Island has been delayed until February 19, 2010. Instead, the studio is offering us another trailer with new glimpses of the mysteries and horrors lurking inside this Alcatraz-like asylum for the criminally insane.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo play 1950's federal marshals sent to investigate the disappearance of an inmate who, the chief physician (Ben Kingsley) informs them, appears to have "evaporated, right through the walls." Once they arrive, they find themselves treated almost like patients themselves and nothing is as it seems. The nightmarish, apparently drug-induced, visions don't appear to be helping their investigation much either. Check it out below.
Posted 10.05.09 by reelz -
Here's some shocking news: Leonardo DiCaprio is setting up a possible franchise for himself at Fox that has zero input from Martin Scorsese ... at least so far.
Variety reports that DiCaprio is set to star in an adaptation of The Deep Blue Goodbye, where he will portray Floridian "salvage consultant" Travis McGee in the first of what was to become a 21-book series by the late mystery novelist John D. MacDonald. In the book, DiCaprio's character, who recovers lost or stolen items or money for clients, tracks down a psychotic murderer in possession of a soldier's treasure lost somewhere in the Florida Keys. No details were given on how Dana Steven has altered the story in her screenplay.
No director is currently attached to The Deep Blue Goodbye, but with DiCaprio also serving as producer, it's expected that DiCaprio will find a suitable candidate. Considering his almost constant working relationship with Scorsese, could he be along for the ride? Their first joint effort on a thriller, Shutter Island, has been pushed back for a February 19, 2010, release, usually not a good sign. However, bringing on Scorsese might help DiCaprio seal himself into a franchise, though with his current schedule loaded with movies like Brave New World, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (with Scorsese), and about 24 others, who knows when DiCaprio will find the time to complete The Deep Blue Goodbye, much less 21 more crime movies.
Posted 09.29.09 by Ryan -
With Shutter Island vacating its October 2 release date for February of 2010, Zombieland has stepped in and will now open a week earlier than previously planned. The move will keep the zombie comedy from competing with Couples Retreat, the newest comedy from Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn. Instead, Zombieland will face off against the female roller blade comedy Whip It, which also opens October 2.
Zombieland stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.
Posted 08.24.09 by Ryan