I know, I know. These two trailers dropped in July and I’m late in sharing them. Trust me, I feel totally guilty.
Anyway, it’s been a good year for comic books movies so far. Will that trend continue with Thor: Ragnarok? Traditionally, of all the MCU films, it’s the Thor movies that always have the toughest time with the critics. I’ll just say that, to me, Jeff Goldblum was born to play an intergalactic villain.
Plus, Tom Hiddleston! Everyone loves Tom Hiddleston!
Thor: Ragnarok is coming out later this year. We won’t get to see Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ready Player One until 2018 but we can watch this teaser!
Hopefully, after slipping a bit with The BFG, Spielberg will return to quality filmmaking with Ready Player One.
(It’s interesting to note that Spielberg does — in theory — have a film coming out this year. It’s called The Papers and it was hastily put together to serve as both a historical drama and a rebuke to the Trump administration’s criticism of the press. The Papers is currently in post-production and there’s some confusion as to whether it will be ready for a 2017 release and Oscar run. To be honest, Ready Player One sounds like it’ll be more fun than The Papers.)
Okay, so I’ll admit that I’m really excited about the trailer for Lady Bloodfight.
But, just from glancing at twitter, it appears that most of y’all are more excited about two other trailers that dropped today!
It’s kind of a tradition to complain that the Thor movies are the weakest part of the MCU. Of course, I would never say that because … well, you know. Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston. I mean, c’mon!
But anyway, there always has been kind of an inherent silliness to Thor and that silliness certainly seems to be present in the first trailer for Thor: Ragnarok.
Silliness, thy name is Jeff Goldblum.
Also, it appears that only Cate Blanchett can destroy Thor’s hammer. Well, that kinda makes sense. Cate Blanchett can do anything.
(I just like the music. Hey, Arleigh, is that Led Zeppelin?)
And then there’s this fun new teaser for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2! Have I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to this movie?
(Hmmm….Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, there’s a lot of Chris in the MCU. But where’s Christopher Walken?)
The fact that Crimson Peak, Guillermo Del Toro’s wonderful new film, is only getting mixed or grudgingly positive reviews tells you everything that you need to know about the sorry state of modern film criticism.
Taking place at the turn of the 19th Century, Crimson Peak tells the story of Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska). The daughter of industrialist Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver), Edith is haunted by a childhood memory, in which her mother’s ghost appeared to her and told her to never go to Crimson Peak. Edith grows up to be an aspiring writer. She writes stories about ghosts, though she is always quick to point out that the ghosts are just meant to be a “metaphor for the past.” Her publishers tell her that no one wants to read a ghost story written by a woman and they recommend that she concentrate on writing a nice romance.
Following the violent death of her father, Edith marries the charming inventor Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and moves to his family home in England. Still in shock over the death of her father, Edith struggles to make things work in England. Tom is nearly penniless and seems to be more interested in his inventions than with her. (Not only did they not consummate the marriage during the honeymoon but Tom sleeps in a separate bedroom.) Meanwhile, Tom’s older sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), does little to hide the disdain that she feels towards her new sister-in-law.
As for the house itself, it is on the verge of collapsing. At one point, Tom mentions that, because of the red clay that sits underneath the mansion, their new home is sometimes called Crimson Peak. If that wasn’t enough to panic Edith, she keeps seeing mysterious figures wandering through the halls. Edith swears that she is seeing ghosts and that they are trying to tell her something. Tom and Lucille tells her that she’s imagining things and continue to insist that she drink a special tea. Could that tea be the reason why Edith finds herself coughing up blood?
(Actually, there’s a lot of blood spilled over the course of Crimson Peak. It’s not just the clay that makes the ground red. If Edith Wharton had written a horror movie, the end result would probably be a lot like Crimson Peak.)
And let’s just get this out of the way right now — Crimson Peak is an absolutely brilliant movie. Those critics who have complained that Crimson Peak doesn’t have any of the expected “shock” scares are totally missing the point. Crimson Peak is not about cheap scares. Del Toro is not looking to make you jump by having a cat jump out of a closet. Instead, Crimson Peak is all about atmosphere. Del Toro maintains an atmosphere of consistent unease throughout the entire film. The scares come less from what is shown and more from what is implied. In that way, Crimson Peak pays homage to the great gothic horror films of the past.
And remember when I complained about how terrible Jessica Chastain was in The Martian? Well, she absolutely brilliant in Crimson Peak. The role of Lucille is not one that demands a lot of subtlety and Chastain appears to be having a great time getting to play such a menacing character. If anything, this is one of Chastain’s best performances. (One need only consider how overly mannered Meryl Streep would have been in the role to realize just how great an actress Jessica Chastain truly is.) Mia Wasikowska is the epitome of fragile loveliness as Edith and Tom Hiddleston is perfectly cast as a handsome, slightly decadent aristocrat with a secret. In fact, all three of them are perfectly cast. Taking their roles too seriously would have been a mistake but so would have not taking the movie seriously enough. The entire cast strikes a perfect balance, embracing the melodrama without going too far over the top.
So, why are so many film critics having such a hard time embracing Crimson Peak? It’s pretty much for the same reason that a lot of them had a hard time with Pacific Rim. Guillermo Del Toro’s films are masterpieces of the pulp imagination. As such, he exposes the condescending attitude that most contemporary critics take towards “genre” films. When mainstream critics dismiss Crimson Peak as just being “a horror film that isn’t scary enough,” all they’re really doing is revealing how ignorant they are of the horror genre.
So, in other words, don’t listen to those mainstream critics. They are not worth your trouble. CrimsonPeak is a wonderfully acted and visually gorgeous gothic romance and it needs to be seen on the big screen.
Reportedly, Crimson Peak struggled at the box office this weekend.
Well, you know what?
If you haven’t seen Crimson Peak, you need to go out and see it this week. It’s a great film and what good are we if we let the great ones go unseen?
It’s shaping up to be a strange Oscar race. Here we are halfway through the year and, yet, there are no front-runners. Some very acclaimed films have been released this year and yet, few of them seem to be getting the type of buzz that usually accompanies a surprise Oscar nomination. Last year at this time, there was cautious buzz for Grand Budapest Hotel while almost everyone felt pretty safe assuming that Sundance favorites like Boyhoodand Whiplash would be players in the Oscar race and many of us were highly anticipating the release of films like Birdman and The Imitation Game. (For that matter, a lot of people were also still convinced that Unbroken would win best picture. The buzz is not always correct but still, the buzz was still there.)
This year, some people are hoping that Mad Max: Fury Road will somehow break through the Academy’s aversion to “genre” filmmaking. (And seriously, the Doof Warrior deserves some sort of award, don’t you think?) Quite a few are hoping that Ex Machina will not be forgotten. Personally, I have high hopes for Inside Out.The buzz around Bridge of Spies is respectful, largely because it seems like the type of film that usually would be be nominated. (That said, this film also seems like it could bring out the worst impulses of both Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, leading to a movie that will have more in common with The Terminal than with War Horse.) Carol was beloved at Cannes.
So there are definitely possibilities out there. When I made my Oscar predictions for this month, I didn’t quite have to blindly guess as much as I did way back in January. But still, it cannot be denied that — as of right now — this race is wide open and there’s a lot of room for surprise.
Below, you’ll find my Oscar predictions for July. You can also check out my previous Oscar predictions for January, February, March,April, May, and June!
Guillermo Del Toro has become the one filmmaker who seems to excite both the elitist cinephiles and the geek community whenever he comes out with a new film. He’s done both pop-friendly extravaganzas (Pacific Rim, Hellboy) to critically-acllaimed arthouse fares (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone). His name has been attached to so many projects of all stripe that one wonders if he ever gets time to rest.
Most of these projects never get past the concept stage, but when one does and he goes all out in directing such projects we get something that excites the fanbase like his upcoming gothic horror film Crimson Peak. It looks to be Del Toro’s love letter to gothic horror of the past with his own visual flair for the morbid and the beautiful in one package.
The film stars a who’s who of powerful performers from Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston to Mia Wasikowska and Charlie Hunnam.
Crimson Peak is set to haunt the public this coming October 16, 2015
The third and, hopefully, final trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron was unlocked today after a Twitter event which had millions of people tweeting the hashtag #AvengersAssemble. One has to give it up to the Marvel marketing machine. They know how to get the public clamoring for more when it comes to their films.
All that could be said has been said about this film. Just sit back and enjoy (or critique) one of the most highly-anticipated films of the year.
When will studios finally smarten up and realize that Guillermo Del Toro is one of the preeminent fantasists of our time. Just give him the money and talent to finally make his dream project for the bigscreen: At the Mountains of Madness.
Until that happens we shall have to wait with anticipation for every new project he does see through to completion. This time around he leaves the world of Jaegers and Kaiju and takes us into the world of gothic horror with his upcoming film Crimson Peak.
The most talented cast he has work with to date, Crimson Peak is Del Toro’s take on the classic gothic ghost story but with more than just a tad and smidgen of his own narrative and visual style when it comes to horror. It stars Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Charlie Hunnam and Jim Beaver.
Crimson Peak is set for an October 16, 2015 release date. Just in time for Halloween.
New Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer has dropped during the inaugural College Football Playoff Championship game between Oregon and Ohio State.
For all the underwhelming reaction that the Ant-Man teaser trailer got after it premiered last week it looks like this latest trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron just builds on the immense buzz and hype created by the leaked trailer from November 2014.
No need to say more. Just watch the new hotness as we wait for May 1, 2015 when Avengers: Age of Ultron shows us something beautiful.
“I know you mean well. You want to protect the world, but you don’t want it to change. There’s only one path to peace…your extinction.” — Ultron
Marvel has released a new extended version of the teaser trailer they released a couple weeks ago. While it’s pretty much similar to the first teaser trailer this extended version has a new intro with Ultron in his initial form confronting the partying Avengers in Avengers Tower. The voice-over by James Spader as Ultron also sounds much different in this trailer than the first. We also get more lingering shots of all the Avengers from Iron Man all the way to Hawkeye rather than the rapid-fire cuts we saw in the first teaser.
May 2015 cannot come soon enough.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is set for a May 1, 2015 release date in North America.
Is it possible that the iconic American independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch is a fan of the late and beloved French film director Jean Rollin?
I ask this question because Jarmusch’s latest film, Only Lovers Left Alive, is one of the most Rollinesque films to have ever been made by a director other than Jean Rollin.
The most obvious similarity between Jarmusch’s film and much of Rollin’s work is that they both deal with vampires. Rollin was the visual poet of vampire cinema and, if nothing else, Only Lovers Left Alive is a very poetic film. The film tells the story of three vampires — ennui-stricken Adam (Tom Hiddleston), Adam’s wife Eve (Tilda Swinton), and Eve’s hedonist sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska), all of whom would be perfectly at home in any of Rollin’s vampire films.
But, to be honest, the horror genre has reached the point where ennui-stricken and decadent vampires are hardly unique. What distinguished both Only Lovers Left Alive and the best films of Jean Rollin is the way that they both use and defy the conventions of the vampire genre to explore issues of sexuality, religion, politics, and artistic expression. Much like Rollin, Jarmusch understands what the audience expects from a vampire film and he makes his larger points by manipulating, defying, and occasionally even confirming those expectations.
In other words, Only Lovers Left Alive is no Twilight and we’re all better off for it.
There are other similarities between Only Lovers Left Alive and the best films of Jean Rollin. Much like Rollin, Jarmusch tells his story through a collection of sensual and increasingly dream-like images. Even Rollin’s trademark lingering shots of empty beaches and ancient castles are duplicated, in Only Lovers Left Alive, with haunting shots of the empty streets in Detroit and Tangiers. When, towards the end of the film, two hungry vampires find themselves searching for blood in an ancient city, it was impossible for me not to think of a similar scene in Jean Rollin’s Two Orphan Vampires.
Now, I’m sure that some of you are probably saying, “That’s great, Lisa, but can you just tell me whether the film is worth watching or not?”
To answer your question, it is. It’s not a flawless film. There’s a few comedic scenes involving a doctor played by Jeffrey Wright that aren’t quite as entertaining as they could be. And while it’s an interesting idea to have Christopher Marlowe show up as a vampire, John Hurt’s performance did not quite work for me. But, whenever the film concentrates on the chemistry between Hiddleston, Swinton, Wasikowska, and Anton Yelchin (who plays a hilariously naïve human), it works brilliantly.
So yes, definitely — see Only Lovers Left Alive.
See it for the scenes in which Adam and Eva drive through the ruins of Detroit, looking for Jack White’s house (“Oh! I love Jack White!” Eve exclaims) and discussing Adam’s belief that the “zombies” (his term for the rest of us) are on the verge of destroying themselves. Adam serves as the film’s philosophical and political mouthpiece and often times, his dialogue runs the risk of being a bit too on-the-nose perfect but Tom Hiddleston is such a charismatic performer that it doesn’t matter. Wisely, Hiddleston delivers his most portentous lines with just a hint of self-mockery, as if to let us know that even Adam knows he’s being overdramatic.
See it for the amazing sequence in which Adam plays music in Detroit while Eve dances to it in Tangiers. If Katharine Hepburn had been turned into a vampire, she would have been a lot like Tilda Swinton’s Eve.
See the film for Mia Wasikowska’s hilarious turn as a petulant and immature brat who just happens to be vampire. The scenes in which she goes out of her way to annoy the dour Adam left me convinced that, if I ever become a vampire, I’ll probably be a lot like Ava.
See it because the White Hills appear as themselves, playing in a club and absolutely killing it.
See it because it’s one of the few vampire films to strike a perfect balance between humor and drama.
Most of all, see it because it’s a good and unique movie and, so far this year, we’ve had a bit of a shortage where those are concerned.
As for me, if I ever meet Jim Jarmusch, I’m going to ask him for the title of his favorite Jean Rollin film.
If nothing else, it should be an interesting conversation.
Through the Shattered Lens 