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"Oh yeah, I forgot, you haven't laughed since the '60s."
Comedy may often look easy, but line up the growing number of big-screen comedy misfires and its clear that it isn't. In fact, recent evidence suggests that its harder to get audiences to laugh than it is to get them to enjoy, say, a 3-D visual spectacle or a potentially scary thriller.
Take next month's Big Wedding, for instance. Despite a cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, Topher Grace and Robert De Niro, we couldn't find much to like in the movie's first trailer, but now another trailer has arrived in hopes of impressing audiences.
watch the trailer >> Posted 03.20.13 by Ryan -
Which of this year's actors are worthy of the industry's highest honor?
If the screenplay is the backbone of a movie and the director its eyes, the actors and actresses who bring the characters to life on screen are its heart and soul. A bad script in the hands of wonderful actors can still make for a pretty decent movie, but give a wonderful script to bad actors and you're gonna get a bad movie every time. This year, there were a considerable number of exceptionally well written movies starring talented actors and actresses released by both independent studios and the majors so there are almost too many eligible candidates to consider for Academy Award nominations. We already asked you to tell us which actresses deserve consideration come Oscar time — so far, you've chosen Jennifer Lawrence for her leading role in Silver Linings Playbook and Anne Hathaway for her supporting role in Les Miserables — now tell us which actors are worthy of the movie industry's highest honors, whether Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor.
Rate the Top 10 Most Oscar-Worthy Actors of 2012 >>
Posted 12.15.12 by BrentJS -
"It's not the years...it's the mileage."
Though the novelty of The Expendables' all-star cast of '80s and '90s action heroes wore off somewhat by the time The Expendables 2 hit theaters, the resurgence of aging tough-guy actors continues with the success of Liam Neeson's Taken 2, which beat down the competition this past weekend. And there's more to come. Ah-nuld's getting back in the game with The Last Stand and Bruce Willis is dusting off John McClane for a fifth go-round in A Good Day to Die Hard. But, not all aging actors can continue to pull off the kind of tough-guy roles they played in their youth. Tell us which over-50 actors still have what it takes to beat up the bad guys and come back for more.
Rate the Top 10 Tough-Guy Actors Over 50 Still Making Movies >>
Posted 10.09.12 by BrentJS -
Over the past several years, Curtis Jackson, aka rapper 50 Cent, has made a concerted effort to distinguish himself not only as a musician but as an actor as well. Jackson made his cinematic debut in the 2005 semi-autobiographical crime drama Get Rich or Die Tryin' before landing a supporting role opposite Academy Award–winners Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in the 2008 crime thriller Righteous Kill. Jackson's latest feature, Freelancers, pairs him again with De Niro and another Academy Award–winner, Forest Whitaker. Jackson told Hollywood Dailies that working with actors like Whitaker and De Niro keeps him wanting to raise his game as an actor.
Of course, you've got to be prepared for it. You don't want to be there with that caliber of talent and not show up performance-wise.
Freelancers sees Jackson play a crooked NYPD police officer who joins forces with his deceased father's former partner (De Niro) and a group of rogue cops. Jackson said that he bonded with De Niro during the shoot. "He's cool," Jackson admitted. "He's somebody that I would actually hang out with if I could all the time."
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It took director David O. Russell some time to figure out how he was going to follow-up his highly lauded 2010 biopic The Fighter, but after dropping out of his adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and then splitting from his video game adaptation Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Russell is finally back with The Silver Linings Playbook.
Based on the 2008 novel by Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook follows Bradley Cooper as a former teacher who moves back in with his parents (Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver) after spending years in a mental institution. While trying to reconcile with his wife, he finds himself drawn to his eccentric neighbor (Jennifer Lawrence. The first trailer from the movie reveals that Russell has his entire cast doing great work, even Chris Tucker.
watch the trailer >> Posted 06.29.12 by Ryan -
All of the previous trailers and preview clips for Spanish writer-director Rodrigo Cortés' (Buried) upcoming psychological thriller, Red Lights, have hinted that the controversial figure at the center of the movie, Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), possesses some sort of psychic abilities. However, none of them have given us any indication what those abilities might be... Until now. The latest preview clip, released via Collider, shows that at least one of the abilities that Silver claims to possess — and that paranormal fraud investigators Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) will try desperately to debunk — is "psychic surgery."
A paranormal alternative to surgery wherein the psychic practitioner supposedly makes an incision using his or her bare hands, removes pathological material, and then heals the incision, psychic surgery has been denounced by the F.T.C. as a "total hoax." Yet millions of people around the world continue to believe in its power to cure. As Silver challenges, "What do you think you know?"
watch the preview clip >> Posted 06.18.12 by BrentJS -
Just one day after Millennium Entertainment released a series of four character posters for the upcoming psychological thriller Red Lights, the studio has released an intense new trailer for the movie. Described by Spanish writer-director Rodrigo Cortés (Buried) as a movie about "how the brain does not give a true picture of reality," Red Lights stars Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver as paranormal researchers dedicated to exposing fakes. The duo meet their match, however, when they try to debunk the abilities of a world-renowned psychic (Robert De Niro) who has been absent from the public arena for thirty years.
watch the new trailer >> Posted 06.01.12 by BrentJS -
Millennium Entertainment has released a series of four character posters for Spanish writer-director Rodrigo Cortés' (Buried) upcoming psychological thriller, Red Lights. The movie stars Robert De Niro as Simon Silver, a legendary psychic who returns after a 30-year absence that followed the mysterious death of his biggest critic. His return prompts two paranormal fraud investigators (played by Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver) to turn their debunking skills on Silver. However, they soon become obsessed with his seemingly inexplicable abilities. Elizabeth Olsen also stars and, based on the tagline on her poster, her character falls into the skeptic camp along with the characters played by Murphy and Weaver.
While some early reviews have complained that the movie plays a game of movie genre bait-and-switch, at least one reviewer compared Red Lights to classics like The Parallax View and Angel Heart, hailing it as a "unique cinema piece...with truly amazing performances."
see the new posters >> Posted 05.30.12 by BrentJS -
Sure, Midnight Run came out in 1988, but why not try to turn it into a franchise 20-odd years later?
Screenwriter Tim Dowling (Just Go with It, Role Models) was hired two years ago to write a sequel script that would allow Robert De Niro to reprise his role as bounty hunter Jack Walsh. Now the sequel may have a director in Brett Ratner (Tower Heist, the Rush Hour trilogy). Deadline reports that Ratner is in talks to direct the sequel for Universal, which has also hired screenwriters David Elliot and Paul Lovett (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Four Brothers) to rewrite Dowling's script.
De Niro is still attached to the project, but it's unlikely Charles Grodin — who played the embezzling mob accountant (Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas) Walsh escorted to L.A. in the first movie — will step out of retirement to return.
This isn't the first attempt to create a Midnight Run franchise. Universal produced a trilogy of TV movies in 1994 — Another Midnight Run, Midnight Runaround, Midnight Run for Your Life — which starred Christopher McDonald in the De Niro role.
Ironically, Ratner is also directing another movie with ties to a mid-1990s Universal TV movie — Hercules and the Amazon Women, which became the basis of the long-running Hercules show that starred Kevin Sorbo. Ratner's upcoming big-screen Hercules, however, is for MGM. Based on Steve Moore's 2008 graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars, that movie will star Dwayne Johnson and start shooting in New Zealand this October.
Posted 03.22.12 by Ryan -
A suspenseful new trailer for Spanish writer-director Rodrigo Cortés' (Buried) upcoming paranormal thriller, Red Lights, has been released online. The movie, about a pair of paranormal fraud investigators played by Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver who meet their match when they try to debunk a famous psychic played by Robert De Niro, debuted last month at the Sundance Film Festival and was quickly snapped up for U.S. distribution by Millenium Entertainment. According to Cortés, Red Lights is less about parlor tricks and more about "how the brain does not give a true picture of reality."
watch the new trailer >> Posted 02.02.12 by BrentJS