Posts Tagged ‘Robert-Pattinson’
It’s a teaser for a trailer! The real trailer for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will be online tomorrow in advance of the theatrical premiere Friday, where it will be attached to the Robert Pattinson film Remember Me. In the meantime, you can now see ten seconds from Eclipse. Here we get a truncated bit of dialogue that sets up, or more properly reiterates, the core conflict at the heart of this romance: does mopey Bella (Kristen Stewart) choose Edward (Pattinson) or Jacob (Taylor Lautner)? Sadly, we don’t get much sense for how new director David Slade will treat the material. Here, it looks like a midpoint between the previous two Twilight films.
But the real reason I’m posting this is that I can’t get over the bit of dialogue from Jacob. “I’m going to fight for you…until your heart stops beating.” Is there any creepier profession of dedication than that? (OK, obviously there is, but in this context I’m still loving Jacob’s line.)
Check out the clip after the break. We’ll have the full trailer tomorrow.
While I’m not wild about Francis Lawrence directing Water for Elephants, some of the cast additions have me more and more interested. We already knew that Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon would be the primary leads for the picture, which takes place in a low-rent traveling circus. Sean Penn was in the mix as one supporting role, but now Christoph Waltz is replacing him as the antagonist, according to Deadline Hollywood. (I’d originally reported that Waltz and Penn were both in the film; that seems to be incorrect.)
Waltz and Witherspoon are a married couple working in the circus; Pattinson is the young vet who signs on to care for the outfit’s menagerie after the death of his parents. He falls in love with Witherspoon’s character and has to deal with her paranoid schizophrenic animal trainer husband. With Penn gone, we still need to know who plays Uncle Al, the impresario who runs the show.
After the break, Hugh Jackman sells cosmetics for director Kevin Lima, and Ben Stiller plans a heist.
The fact that Hugh Jackman signed on to Avon Man is old news — summer of ‘09 to be exact — but we never covered it, so I’ll use Production Weekly’s announcement that the film will shoot this April in Atlanta to bring it to the attention of those who may have missed the news. Hitch writer Kevin Bisch scripted, and Kevin Lima (Enchanted) will direct.
Here’s the story:
Jackman is one of a number of men laid off from an auto dealership. [He] is reluctantly recruited into becoming an Avon salesman, and while the experience is initially emasculating, he uses his charm and good looks to become a top seller. The comedy takes on a “Full Monty” vibe when the car salesman sets out to save his financially strapped family and town by conscripting his buddies into the makeup business to win a regional contest.
Finally, Ben Stiller is joining Trump Heist, said to be a “black Ocean’s Eleven,” possibly as a replacement for Eddie Murphy. The film is about workmen who plan to rob the residents of New York’s Trump Tower, where they happen to be employed. If this goes through, a rewrite will likely ensue. (Can’t really have a “black Ocean’s Eleven” with Stiller in the lead.)
I like the idea of casting Stiller against type as the mastermind of a heist, but hope that the rewrite doesn’t rob the movie of teeth. The LA Times also says that the film could be retitled Tower Heist (yawn) and doesn’t have any news on whether other proposed cast members Chris Rock and Chris Tucker are likely to stay on. A black heist film with Trump Towers as the object of the crime could be socially and politically loaded; if the script is any good, that would be really interesting to see. Oh, wait: Brett Ratner is the director. Never mind.
Filed under: Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Tech Stuff, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
In case you hadn't heard, 3D films make a lot of money, and Hollywood won't rest until everything is in 3D whether the film is enhanced by it or not. We can no longer feign surprise at "Really? In 3D?" anymore. Except maybe this one last time: Breaking Dawn, the final installment (or installments, if it's split into two films) of The Twilight Saga, may be filmed in 3D. It's obvious why. You don't even need me to tell you why Twilight fans might want to see it in 3D. It's not for the scenery of Forks, Washington. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Summit Entertainment is seriously contemplating whether or not Twilight has made them enough money, or if they could earn more by making Edward and Bella's love a truly immersive experience. Considering this is the book where they finally get it on (and Edward breaks their bed, if I remember correctly), the implications of that are very unsettling. But hey, think of Taylor Lautner's rippling abs! Surely that's enough to offset Reneseeme's birth in full and bloody 3D.
Summit will reportedly decide on whether or not to go 3D by the end of the month. THR notes that any Breaking Dawn plans could still be derailed by Stephanie Meyer, who has an ironclad contract binding her to approve everything from casting to director. It's not clear whether or not that includes filming format, but even if it didn't, I don't think Summit would risk her disapproval. She commands an army, and if she doesn't want a 3D movie, the fans won't either. But what if the fans do want it? I've seen the lines at ComicCon for a three-dimensional glimpse of the cast. Couldn't the film sell under the same idea?
Though the territory was already covered to some extent in Almost Famous, Zooey Deschanel will star in a half-hour dramedy pilot for HBO based on I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, the memoir by famous band-aide Pamela Des Barres.
Famous for sleeping her way through a succession of rock and screen stars in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Des Barres chronicles her exploits and the frequent depression that followed when her interludes with famous dudes didn’t turn into anything meaningful. Almost Famous fictionalized the story, and it sounds like this will be based in reality. Which means, if the series is picked up, we could potentially enjoy a parade of ’stars of the week’ playing famous rockers and actors. Which would be amusing, if nothing else. [DHD]
After the break, Danny Glover fights dragons (finally!) and Christina Ricci joins Robert Pattinson.
It feels as if Danny Glover hasn’t been seen on screen much since his appearance in the first Saw, but if you look at his resume you’ll see that he’s been fairly busy. Add one more film to the pile, as Glover will appear with Vinnie Jones in Dragon Fire, a “live action fantasy thriller” directed by Ryan Little. It’s loosely based on Moby Dick (so, kinda like Reign of Fire?) and starts production this week in Utah. The budget is small at $5m, so I’m curious to see what the crew can pull together. [THR]
Finally Christina Ricci has joined Bel Ami, the film starring Robert Pattinson and Uma Thurman. The film is based on Guy de Maupassant’s novel of the same name, and revolves around “a young man played by Pattinson in 1890s Paris who seduces his way to wealth and fame from a poor beginning.”
The supporting cast is strong: Kristin Scott Thomas, Holly Grainger, Philip Glenister and Colm Meaney. The film starts shooting this week, and will film at locations in London and Budapest. [THR]
A couple months ago, when we heard that I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence was eying a movie based on the DC character Sgt. Rock, we noted that before he got to anything else he was likely to adapt Water for Elephants. Now we know that’s exactly what he’ll do. Scripted by Richard LaGravenese from Sara Gruen’s novel, the film already had Reese Witherspoon attached to star. Now Sean Penn and Robert Pattinson are looking to sign on as well.
The book takes place during the Great Depression, and follows 21-year old Jacob, who joins a second-rate circus after the death of his parents. Having once planned to become a veterinarian, Jacob is entrusted with the outfit’s mangy menagerie. He has to deal with impresario Uncle Al and animal trainer August, both of whom are crazy and eccentric. He falls in love with August’s young wife Marlena, which naturally leads to trouble.
As Amazon says, “Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover.” (So he’s the movie’s Captain Kirk? OK, why not?)
Pattinson would obviously play Jacob and Witherspoon Marlena. The question is whether Penn would be Uncle Al or paranoid schizophrenic August. Deadline Hollywood pegs him as “the other lead in the Depression-era romantic triangle, saying he’s looking to play August. I’m OK with that; the role sounds like one that Penn could absolutely tear up, and hopefully he’d be able to have some fun with it rather than just playing dour and terrifying.
Deadline also notes that Witherspoon is looking at a role in This Means War, once meant as a Martin Lawrence vehicle but now revived with Bradley Cooper looking to star.
It’s been slow on the casting front since late December, when Hollywood pretty much shut down for the holidays. Now that everyone is back to work things are picking up slowly.
Christina Ricci has joined the cast of Bel Ami, which already stars Robert Pattinson and Uma Thurman. Based on Guy de Maupassant’s short story ‘Bel Ami,’ the film will follow George Duroy (Pattinson), a young journalist who rose from poverty to become one of the most successful men in Paris via the ruthless and calculating bedding of the city’s most glamorous and influential women. Kristin Scott Thomas is also in the cast. Filming starts next month in Paris. [Production Weekly]
After the break, new work for Maggie Grace, Salma Hayek, Kat Dennings and Josh Lucas.
In Faster, Dwayne Johnson is “an ex-con looking to avenge his brother’s murder, who is trailed by a veteran policeman.” Billy Bob Thornton recently joined up, and I expect he plays the veteran cop. Now Maggie Grace is signed on and Salma Hayek is in negotiations. We don’t know anything about their roles yet, but do know that George Tillman is directing from a script by Joe and Tony Gayton. This is a CBS films production, so I’m a little wary right now. [Variety]
Finally, why is someone making a movie that ‘borrows’ the title of a landmark Sonic Youth record? I don’t know, but the cast of Daydream Nation is interesting: Kat Dennings and Josh Lucas will be in the Canadian indie written and directed by Michael Golbach. Story is about “a disaffected high school senior [Dennings] who finds herself deposited along with her widowed father in a desolate Canadian hamlet where boredom leads her into an affair with a teacher [Lucas] and into a more promising romance with a druggie teen.” Will this have any chance of topping Lucas’ career-best destruction in Ang Lee’s Hulk? Probably not, but I’ll watch it anyway. [Variety]
Every fifth or sixth word in my notes on The Twilight Saga: New Moon is ‘mope’. If there’s a more listless, disengaged piece of film this year I hope I don’t have to suffer it. (Actually, there is, and I did right after writing this. The guys’ flipside to New Moon: Ninja Assassin.) This second Twilight film is not a dreamy, thorny gothic romance; it is a stereotypical, unimaginative caricature of depressed teens expanded into 120 minutes. By comparison, Catherine Hardwicke’s creaky first film looks like a wise and knowing glimpse into youthful distraction and obsession.
There’s another thread that dominates my notes on New Moon, and which is really the crux of why the movie is so lousy: ‘heroine’ Bella (Kristen Stewart), who in this chapter is reduced to sub-character statues. She’s less substantial than tissue paper, but is featured in nearly every scene. Bella is listless and empty, devoid of any notable characteristic. She has no opinions and nothing interesting to say; her only characteristic is that she wants. But the object of her desire, the vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson, pale and grim), is equally as insubstantial. They’d make a perfect pair, if you were looking for a couple to fill out the deep background of a better film.
We open a short time after the events of the first film. Bella has been generally accepted into the ranks of the vampiric Cullen family. But her status as a human — that is, potential food — is underlined when an innocent paper cut leads to a violent family showdown. It’s one thing when your new girlfriend doesn’t fit in with the fam; quite another when she’d fit all too well on the dinner menu. There’s also the lingering spectre of rival vampire Victoria (the briefly-seen Rachelle Lefevre, to be replaced in the next movie by Bryce Dallas Howard) who, having been defeated in the last film, earnestly want to get her fangs into Bella.
So the Cullens, not to put too fine a point on it, fuck right off. Edward brushes off Bella in the way a confused teenage kid might (ironically making his action one of the few recognizable human moments in the story) and she’s left to mope around for months. Finally her eye lands on the newly beefed up Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who hits werewolf puberty just as he and Bella are about to really hook up. Their friendship develops as she uses him to take her mind off Edward; she’s playing him along, and he’s too smitten to see it.
It’s a classic romantic setup, but new director Chris Weitz doesn’t get it. He knows that Bella and Edward represent grand romance to a legion of teens, so he smashes them together in the frame. But there’s no spark. He knows that Bella is meant to be distracted and wooed by werewolf Jacob, so he shoots Jake and his wolfpack brothers with their shirts off and pecs glistening, seemingly unaware of how laughable the crew is. Nothing genuine passes between any of the characters; you could mistake the film for a feature-length parody of the Twilight phenomena if you didn’t already know better.
Melissa Rosenberg wrote the script. She’s already a Twilight vet, having scripted the first film, and has plenty of experience with obsession thanks to her day job on Dexter. I’m told that her script is very much a direct adaptation of the novel, so I’m left pinning the blame for this snoozefest on Weitz’s perfunctory direction. At most, perhaps Rosenberg has to answer a seemingly truncated climactic sequence where Edward tries to end his life at the hands of the Volturi, a clan of bloodsucker royalty. (He basically attempts the vampiric version of suicide by cop.)
The craft in Catherine Hardwicke’s effort was definitely more rickety than what’s on display here; from any technical perspective this is a far more competent film. (Which generally means: more traditional, which is not necessarily better by any means.) OK, the effects here are better, thanks perhaps to extra dollars in the budget that were spent on shirts for the entire cast in the last movie. But when it came to the feel, Hardwicke got it and Weitz doesn’t. In Twilight, scenes between Bella and her father were touching, and Bella’s alienation was easy to understand. It gave her a reason to be drawn to Edward Cullen. In New Moon, there’s no reason at all.
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson both struggle against the content vacuum that sucks the life out of the movie, but neither is even vaguely strong enough to put up the necessary fight. As Jacob, Taylor Lautner is marginally better, but he also gets the best material; he’s the only active, non-depressed character of the core trio. Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning offer a little juice as Volturi elders, Sheen even channeling a bit of Christoph Waltz energy, but it’s a futile effort. So too with Anna Kendrick, who genuinely earns a laugh or two. But after seeing her sparkle in Up in the Air this is like catching her sneaking in a bored weekend of community theatre.
/Film Rating: 2 out of 10
While you’re in the multiplex waiting for The Twilight Saga: New Moon to begin, you will probably see this trailer for Summit Entertainment’s other movie starring Robert Pattinson, the romantic drama Remember Me.
Robert Pattinson plays Tyler, a rebellious young man in New York City who has a strained relationship with his father (Pierce Brosnan) ever since tragedy separated their family. Tyler didn’t think anyone could possibly understand what he was going through until the day he met Ally (Emilie de Ravin) through an unusual twist of fate. Love was the last thing on his mind, but as her spirit unexpectedly heals and inspires him, he begins to fall for her. Through their love, he begins to find happiness and meaning in his life. But soon, hidden secrets are revealed, and the circumstances that brought them together slowly threaten to tear them apart. Remember Me is an unforgettable story about the power of love, the strength of family, and the importance of living passionately and treasuring every day of one’s life. Remember Me also stars Academy Award® winner Chris Cooper (Adaptation), and Academy Award® nominee Lena Olin (Chocolat).
Dare I say this film actually looks half decent, and Pattinson seems to be on a mission to show he might actually be more than just a teen heartthrob. And I’ll watch any film that Chris Cooper is involved in. Watch the trailer embedded after the jump, and leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Watch the trailer in high definition on MySpace. Remember Me hits theaters on March 12th 2010.
