It’s been a long time since we saw Mel Gibsonin a movie, and many people are anticipating his return to the big screen with a beaver puppet on his hand. And that makes us disappointed to learn that there’s this other Gibson vehicle arriving in theaters first: Edge of Darkness, the trailer for which arrived online last night. Couldn’t this be pushed back indefinitely (and we get Malick’s delayedThe Tree of Lifein its place)? Or, at least until after the Jodie Foster-directed The Beaveropens?
Such disappointment would be felt with any other Gibson movie after all the Beaver hype, but the feeling is exacerbated by the fact Edge of Darkness looks like just another vigilante thriller in the wake of Taken, Law Abiding Citizen and the Foster-starrer The Brave One. The cast is great, even if Danny Hustonseems like 100 other characters he’s played before (not that I ever dislike his rehashed performances). And of course a script co-written by William Monahanand direction from Martin Campbellin his first feature gig since Casino Royale should mean the film won’t be terrible. Still, does anyone want to see this at all?
Check out what the other film blogs are saying about the trailer after the jump:
For what it’s worth, it’s perfect casting, but there’s still something surprising about the news that Dakota Fanning is taking on the starring role in Floria Sigismondi’s film about ’70s girl group The Runaways. As 15-year-old rocker Cherie Currie, Fanning will continue to bait stories about how quickly she’s growing up, though really the part seems both ironic and appropriate for the former child actress. Currie, who fronted the band wearing a lot of low-cut tops and lingerie on the outside (before Madonna!), may have grown up too fast thanks to her sexualized image and early abuses of drugs and alcohol, but just because Fanning will play the part doesn’t mean she’ll be similarly thrust into adulthood. If anything, her masquerade as Currie will be more effective if audiences recognize that Fanning is still a little girl.
Fanning remains on track to be her generation’s Jodie Foster (who, interestingly enough, costarred with Currie in the movie Foxes), rather than her generation’s Drew Barrymore. And at best this could be her Taxi Driver(at worst, it’s actually her Foxes). Unfortunately, Fanning is a young girl in the age of creepy Internet comments and count-down clocks (not to mention the truly terrible examples of pedophilia to be found on the web), so much of the response to her casting is going to be stuck in predictably thoughtless concerns for her fading innocence and joked anticipation of her innocence lost.
Here are some of the blogged expectations for how the role will impact Fanning’s age and image:
Are you one of the many sci-fi and comic book geeks who’d be more interested in Push were it not for Dakota Fanning? Sure, the precocious child star is now a teen actress (she’s about to turn 15), yet that probably makes you even more worried about her appearance in the movie. But what can you do? She’s literally everywhere this week – voicing the title character in the animated Coraline and starring in two new video releases, Hounddog and The Secret Life of Bees, both of which were released Tuesday. In the tradition of child actors continuing careers into adolescence, it’s only a matter of time before she ruins a movie that would have been better without her.
We’ll have to wait until this weekend to see if that time is now, with Push, but in the meantime let’s take a look at some of the past offenders in this tradition. Most of the following former child actors (our definition: actors that began their career below the age of 13) have done great things in their adulthood, but each has done at least one film that could have been better without him or her. You may disagree with some of these picks, and you may think we’ve forgotten some (was Christian Bale really the worst part of The Dark Knight? did Mary-Kate Olsen’s disturbing kiss with Ben Kingsley take away from The Wackness?), so do share your own thoughts on former child stars below. We just ask that you keep your comments somewhat tasteful and law-abiding. …Read more
From the turn-of-the-century Northwest to seedy 70’s NYC, from an 80’s morgue to 90’s Japan to the modern-day midwest, the oldest profession in the world is onscreen to stay. Here are five timeless performances that are worth the peep show.
Julie Christie is exhilarating in her Oscar-nominated turn as the smart and sexy Constance Miller, a no-nonsense businesswoman in the wild and wicked Northwest who just happens to be in the business of selling sex. In fact, it’s Warren Beatty’s dream chaser John McCabe who is the bimbo to Miller’s sly fox. Like a whore himself, he needs the professional madam’s charms and chops to make a living more than she needs him as a partner in their bordello/tavern venture. Sex-positive feminism at its finest.
Forget about Don Cheadle replacing Terence Howard as James Rhodes / War Machine in Iron Man II, which smells a lot like the “we’ll threaten to replace Tobey Maguire with Jake Gyllenhaal” tactic that Sony used for Spider-Man II –– Hollywood has been doing this for years. It was bad enough back in the days of television with Dick Sargent replacing Dick York in Bewitched, but now it’s becoming pretty commonplace for producers to replace actors in iconic roles. Although now it’s more common due to monetary concerns, which seems to be what has taken Howard out of the War Machine suit, it’s also common to see an actor ankle a role because they don’t like the source material, or the direction the character is taking. We’ve put together several different re-castings, which all happened for a variety of reasons: money, dissatisfaction with the script, test audience reactions, and actors just growing tired of playing the same character. Check them out after the break.
For the last twenty years, Jodie Foster has had a lot in common with Tom Hanks. They both were nominated for Oscars in 1989, and again in 1995 (she won the first time; he won the second time), a year in which they each were recognized for playing kind of retarded. Each now has two Academy Awards and each is considered a dark, dark horse for this year’s Oscar race (neither will be nominated). Both actors continue to remain at the top of America’s favorites, even when or after they star in critically scorned blockbusters. And now, Foster is apparently trying to add one more thing she has in common with Hanks: she’s gone and made her own Joe vs. the Volcano.
In the trailer for Nim’s Island, we see that Foster’s character, like Hanks’ “Joe”, is a closeted, unwell human being who ends up on a mission to a little island, of which she has been deemed the savior. And like Joe, Foster meets an annoying little blond — though this time it’s child actress Abigail Breslin instead of childish actress Meg Ryan. There are, however, a lot of differences, too. And ultimately, Nim’s Island look a hundred times worse than Joe versus the Volcano — which is saying a lot (Joe has its charms, but it is truly an awful movie).
The Brave One’s U.S. poster was a gimme for the Jodie Foster’s massive lesbian fan base: it featured a full body shot of the star in a tight, midriff-skimming tee, holding a big, phallic gun down by her tight-jeaned nether-regions. It blatantly sexualized Foster’s quest for vengeance, and it didn’t go unnoticed: AfterEllen.com summed it up with the headline, “Best. Jodie. Movie. Poster. Ever.” But what works for the queer blogosphere does not necessarily an international blockbuster make, and thus Warner Brothers has gone with a very different brand identity for the international rollout. The Risky Biz Blog pegs the change as ratings-board motivated:
In the U.S. — where the MPAA frowns on ads where guns strike too threatening a pose — the main image featured Foster, looking distraught, her head bowed and her gun hanging limply by her side. But in its foreign make-over, The Brave One’s poster…features a full head shot of Foster with her gun raised, aiming to kill. Nothing shy about it.
In other words: the idea that Foster is conflicted about killing has been wiped clean from this ad campaign. It’s gone from “what have I done?” to “look what I’m doing.” It makes sense: when complexity fails to sell, it’s time to go binary.
David Cronenberg’s Russian mob movie was a hit with Toronto audiences, too: it picked up theaudience prize for best film at the Toronto Film Festival over the weekend, edging out runners-up Juno and Body of War.
In Toronto acquisitions news, IFC picked up Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, and in what is being billed as the Festival’s biggest sale, First Look Studios purchased the Aaron Eckhart/Jessica Alba comedy Bill for at least $3 million.
Southland Tales and Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly is launching Darko Entertainment, a production company designed “to back modestly budgeted, director-driven films.” Their first venture will be Dirty Girl, a co-production with Christine Vachon’s Killer Films.
MTV Films and Old School director Todd Phillips are producing a feature around YouTube sensation Million Dollar Strong (aka Mike O’Connell and Ken Jeong). O’Connell is writing the screenplay with Peter Kline.
Over the next week, I’ll be appearing on several Toronto Film Festival-centric episodes of ReelerTV, which Stu VanAirsdale and friends are producing in collaboration with Spout. In the episode embedded above, Stu hits the red carpet for the premiere of The Brave One, and I recap a batch of Toronto films that I saw in Telluride, including Juno, Margot at the Wedding, and Redacted.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
For what it’s worth, it’s perfect casting, but there’s still something surprising about the news that Dakota Fanning is taking on the starring role in Floria Sigismondi’s film about ’70s girl group The Runaways. As 15-year-old rocker Cherie Currie, Fanning will continue to bait stories about how quickly she’s growing up, though really the part seems both ironic and appropriate for the former child actress. Currie, who fronted the band wearing a lot of low-cut tops and lingerie on the outside (before Madonna!), may have grown up too fast thanks to her sexualized image and early abuses of drugs and alcohol, but just because Fanning will play the part doesn’t mean she’ll be similarly thrust into adulthood. If anything, her masquerade as Currie will be more effective if audiences recognize that Fanning is still a little girl.
With 
