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The first preview clip from director Jim Sheridan's (Brothers) new psychological thriller, Dream House, was big on mystery — "Who is Peter Ward?" — but lacked any real thrills or chills. That oversight has been remedied in the latest two preview clips from the movie, which stars Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz as Will and Libby Atenton, a loving couple who, along with their two girls (played by Claire and Taylor Geare), relocated from New York City to a small town in New England only to find that their "dream house" was once the sight of a gruesome murder and that they are now the killer's next victims. If you startle easily, you may not want to watch these clips at work, in a library, or in a quiet coffee shop.
watch the new preview clips >> Posted 09.27.11 by BrentJS -
Audiences are finally getting a chance to step into director JIm Sheridan's Dream House.
Shot in early 2010, the lack of snow in Toronto forced the production to schedule reshoots in December, when (hopefully) more snow was on the ground. At that point, actor Daniel Craig was already in Sweden shooting The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which then postponed the reshoots to March, which, in turn, meant that the February release date had to be changed to September.
The reshoots allowed Sheridan to add in a few additional scenes to help explain the thriller's story. "I'm happy enough with it. It will be a good movie," Sheridan told THR last December. "But it's a very unusual storyline that's sometimes hard to negotiate. At base, it's a big love story. On top of that, it's a genre horror story. On top of that, it's a psychological thriller. There's a lot of strands to keep in the air."
watch the creepy trailer >> Posted 07.22.11 by Ryan -
The trailer for this flick is heavy, and on the surface the movie appears to be an Oscar contender. Plus, Tobey Maguire looks a heck of a lot like Travis Bickle (from Taxi Driver, nominated for Best Picture in 1977). What do the critics think so far?
"The film is gripping — an honorable and beautifully acted addition to the tradition of homefront war stories."
— Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"Brothers isn't badly acted, but as directed by the increasingly impersonal Jim Sheridan (In America), it's lumbering and heavy-handed, a film that piles on overwrought dramatic twists until it begins to creak under the weight of its presumed significance."
— Owen Gleiberman, Chicago Tribune
"...a solidly accessible, admirably serious yet not entirely realized picture."
— Justin Chang, Variety
"...remake of a Danish film has much to admire but never comes together with the impact of the original."
— Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
"Jim Sheridan's remake of Danish director Susanne Bier's 2005 original on the familial and psychic trauma caused by Operation Enduring Freedom feels like Operation Endurance."
— Melissa Anderson, Village Voice
Posted 12.03.09 by reelz -
Acclaimed director Jim Sheridan's (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father) new movie opens this week. Brothers tells the story of a soldier who returns home from captivity in Afghanistan to discover that his wife turned to his brother for comfort while he was presumed dead. Tobey Maguire plays Sam Cahill, the solider who tries to reintegrate with his family while coping with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Natalie Portman plays Sam's wife, Grace, a role that she told Parade she was eager to play.
It was such a fantastic opportunity because so many parts written for females my age are just, like, the cute, girlish love interest. To get to play a real woman who's really strong and a good mother was really a great opportunity.
To prepare for his role, Maguire met with soldiers who suffer from PTSD. To play Grace, Portman said that she spoke with military wives to help give her insight into the "strength" that it takes to be the wife of a soldier fighting overseas.
They have to be tough, too. I think that women are remarkably able to deal with bad times and just sort of take control when it needs to happen. They have a great survival mechanism. In the history of warfare, while the men were away, the women were taking care of everything at home. They show this incredible capacity to sort of rise to the occasion.
Portman is currently filming Black Swan, a supernatural thriller from director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler). After Black Swan, Portman will jump right into the role of Jane Foster in director Kenneth Branagh's production of Thor, which is expected to begin filming in January. Portman told Parade that the Thor production is wrapped in very elaborate security measures to protect against people who want to "scam" information.
It's like you don't get a script anymore that doesn't have watermarks that would identify you if you ever tried to leak anything. The Thor script is hard to read because it's on some weird colored paper and they have your name in huge letters across every page. And any time you get a phone call from Marvel, it doesn't come up as a normal number, it's like a five digit code. I've never seen that before. I've had phone calls from people in the government and they don't have that. Marvel's like some like crazy underground world.
Posted 12.02.09 by BrentJS -
Actor Tobey Maguire recently told The Boston Globe that he hopes that his new movie, Brothers, will shed some light on one of the frequently overlooked problems facing veterans returning from combat: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the movie, Maguire plays Sam Cahill, a soldier who experiences the effects of PTSD after returning home from Afghanistan, where he had been held captive by the Taliban. To prepare for the role, Maguire spent a great deal of time doing research and meeting with soldiers who had suffered with PTSD.
People don't like to talk about it because it's like pulling back the curtain on another side of humanity. The people who've gone through these things, there's a different look in their eyes. They just know a different side of being a human. We can only imagine this stuff, but these people have been through terrible ordeals and have seen and lived through things that can change a person's worldview.
And our society isn't really dealing with it. Hopefully this movie can spark some conversation and people will start speaking the truth about this stuff.
As for the rumors that Maguire was reluctant to reprise the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in a fourth installment of the franchise, Maguire said that they're unfounded.
It's not that I was reluctant [to do Spider-Man 4]. For me, it's a big process to decide whether or not to do a role.... I have to want to wake up in the morning and feel like I can't wait to get to work. I've got to feel okay about leaving my kids for 12 or 13 hours a day for five months. It's a big commitment.
Maguire went on to say that he was enticed to return to the role by the opportunity to develop the character and stretch his own acting abilities.
Hopefully I'll be able to evolve the character in a new direction. He'll still be Peter Parker, but I hope I can move him forward a bit and take him to a place where there will be new challenges for me as an actor.
Posted 11.29.09 by BrentJS -
Tobey Maguire told The LA Times that the intensity of working on his latest movie, the family drama Brothers, had such an effect that he "lost a lot of joy" while working on it.
I wasn't even aware of it. I don't mean it to sound goofy or artsy or something, but two days before we wrapped, I started telling some jokes and laughing, whatever, and it was like a release for me. I hadn't done that in, like, two months.
Brothers follows a military wife (Natalie Portman) who is told that her husband (Maguire) has died in Afghanistan. Grieving, she finds solace with her husband's brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) until her husband suddenly arrives home. The role is a real change of pace for the Spider-Man actor, who was pleased to shed some light on the real problems that soldiers face.
In the area of our veterans coming home with traumas or PTSD or whatever, it's one of those issues that isn't pretty to look at. We ask these people to fight for us and risk their lives, and certainly potentially alter their outlook of the world or how they react to things. I think it would be nice for us as a society to have some more awareness of what they go through, and to take onsome more responsibility for the results of our asking them to go over there.
Maguire lost 20 pounds to play the Marine captain who survives captivity in Afghanistan and says that playing the role had a profound effect on him.
The general sort of tone of the piece and the character stuck with me — it was more like a mood. I was in a mood for two months.
Brothers was based on the Danish movie Brødre and was directed by Jim Sheridan. Brothers opens December 4.
Posted 11.03.09 by Ryan -
Dream House, a psychological thriller by Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father) coming out of Universal Pictures and Morgan Creek, has cast Daniel Craig as its lead. Craig will play a successful publishing executive who quits his job in New York City to relocate his family and two daughters to a beautiful house in a small New England town. They soon learn their home was once the murder scene of a mother and her children, believed to be at the hands of her husband who survived.
The movie is written by David Loucka. No release date is set for Dream House yet, but it is set to begin filming on January 25, 2010.
Posted 09.01.09 by reelz