Reelviews.net Review: The Artist
To label The Artist as an homage to the silent era is to undervalue what director Michel Hazanavicius has achieved with this movie. In a time when bigger, louder, and more spectacular is interpreted as being “better,” he has turned the clock back to a time when, although the technology was simpler, the experience was magical. Not only is The Artist an affectionate callback to the early days of cinema, it’s a recreation of the melodramas of the time, with just a hint of a spoof around the edges. Hazanavicius isn’t just making a “silent movie,” he is attempting to enter a time warp and craft something that would fool all but the most studious and scholarly into believing it could have been a lost film from a bygone era. If his tongue is sometimes a little in his cheek, that’s all part of the fun.
First Trailer of Ridley Scott’s “PROMETHEUS”
While Hollywood is busy releasing the remake of her signature character movie, Sweedish actress Noomi Rapace has moved on to new horizons. Her first Hollywood movie “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” has already been released last week, and now the first trailer of her second one, one of the most awaited movies of 2012, Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” has been released today.
5 DIRECTORS REMAKE BEVERLY HILLS COP
The other day I was on the subway, in the midst of a longish journey, and serendipitously decided to listen to the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack on my iPod. Whence the serendipity? I’m glad you asked. As all reliable determinant metrics show, Beverly Hills Cop is the perfect pop movie. It has Eddie Murphy at the height of his powers, a great supporting cast, a script that balanced action and comedy better than any other, and (per the inspiration for this musing) one of the best soundtracks ever. It was enormously popular, and despite both sequels sucking polar bear dick its memory is un-fuck-with-able.
Still, with the apparent mission in Hollywood to remake every movie released in the 1980s, there remains a possibility, however slim, that Beverly Hills Cop might join the parade. This is something I would prefer not to happen. I mean, I’m not climbing the walls in existential dread and hissing jeremiads in Latin at passersby (that’s Wednesday night) but it is a fear. In the interests of making the best of a bad situation, I propose that rather than try—and fail—to recapture the original’s perfection as pop, that we go a different direction. As the good doctor said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get weird.” In that vein, here is Beverly Hills Cop as remade by five international directors of varying degrees of renown:
My take on Margin Call
Every year there are at least a couple of movies, which get released without much fanfare and have a low profile throughout but will knock your block off with the superlative quality they contain. Margin Call is 2011′s one such film.
With a star cast led by universally loved Kevin Spacey, Margin Call is a thriller of a completely different kind. Its a thriller where the audience gets the thrill completely knowing what is about to happen. There isn’t any mystery element but the chills the audience will get is because of the importance of whats happening in the film.
Margin call is loosely based on the Lehmann brothers debacle in the 2008 recession. Its a film which tells how and why it all began. However, despite being a movie rich in the financial mathematics quotient, the director has taken ample measures for any common man to understand whats happening and get the gravity of the situation.
*****Light spoilers*****
My take on Hugo
Prologue
I would like to state in the beginning that I am not a big scorsese fan. Having said that, I simply loved his last feature- “Shutter Island”. In my opinion, it was the best film last year. This huge hangover of Shutter Island was the driving force in pushing me to the theater to watch HUGO.I had seen the trailers on TV and it looked like a typical kid movie. However, I was intrigued in finding out what is Scorsese doing with a kids 3D film at this stage of his career.
Review:
I am not a big fan of the 3D format as we have to wear big glasses and by the end of most films, I end up saying–was it even worth a 3D. However, with Hugo, I’d like to say- I am glad it was a 3D film. Its probably the bets use of 3D I have seen in a long time. This is however, the only thing which I found worth a kid’s watch in the movie.
Christian Bale Filmed Being Attacked by Chinese Guards
Melinda Liu, Dec 16, 2011 1:42 PM EST
While trying to visit a Chinese activist, Christian Bale is attacked by government guards—even though he’s starring in a movie partly funded by the Chinese government.
Rural Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, who is blind, once asked me whether U.S. films accurately portrayed American life—and specifically whether police brutality was as common as it seemed. He could never have dreamed that, a decade later, Academy Award winner Christian Bale would be roughed up by Chinese security guards as the American actor attempted to visit Chen—and that Bale would be in China on a publicity tour for a movie, The Flowers of War, that the Beijing regime is heavily promoting in hopes it’ll earn China its first Oscar.
The Christian Bale Directors Posse: 6 Auteurs Won Over By the Actor
2:17 PM PST 11/30/2011 by Scott McKim
From Steven Spielberg to Terence Malick and Christopher Nolan, Bale has won the hearts and minds of many top directors.
1) Steven Spielberg
Bale was 12 when Steven Spielberg cast him in Empire of the Sun, beating out 4,000 kids who also auditioned. Amy Irving, who was then married to the director, had recommended Bale after starring with him in the TV movie Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.
