Article: What to watch on IFC: “Fight Club”
The first rule of Fight Club: Watch it on Sunday at 8/7c
“The Dark Knight Rises” debuts more new character posters
Has the Sacha Baron Cohen shtick jumped the shark?
Tim Grierson on Will Smith, the Last Movie Star
Exclusive download: Corporal, featuring Michael Shannon, presents “Glory”
Brad Pitt
Article: The difference between movie stars and actors
Is there a difference between “movie stars” and actors? Both of them act, obviously, but one of them does it as an art form and the other does it – how does one say this? — for the adulation and the box office. There has been endless speculation about psychological motivations. Why would someone need…
Article: Seven reasons to watch “Se7en” tonight
David Fincher’s “Se7en” starts at 8/7c.
Article: Seth Rogen on Jonah Hill’s Oscar nomination: “He’s f–king psyched about it”
“It is a little weird that he is now friends with Brad Pitt, to me,” Rogen said of Hill. “But he’s a friendly dude. He can be friends with Brad Pitt.”
Article: Brad Pitt says he’s looking to retire in three years
Three years. After that, you won’t have Brad Pitt to kick around or anoint as the Sexiest Man Alive for an eighth time anymore. Promoting “Moneyball” overseas, Pitt sat down with “60 Minutes Australia” for a lengthy interview. Near the end of the conversation, the interviewer asked how long Pitt would like to continue working…
Article: Match Cuts: “Troy”
In Match Cuts, we examine every available version of a film, and decide once and for all which is the one, definitive cut worth watching. This week, in honor of Brad Pitt’s role in the recently released baseball drama “Moneyball” we’re taking a look at the epic war film “Troy.” EDITIONS: Theatrical Cut (2004): 163…
Article: “Moneyball,” reviewed
This review contains spoilers for historical events. If you don’t know how “Moneyball” ends already and don’t want to know, do not read further. People who know baseball will have a very different experience watching “Moneyball” than the people who don’t. The film, an adaptation of a revolutionary non-fiction book by Michael Lewis, recreates the…
Article: Max Brooks visits the set and shows off pictures from “World War Z”
While its zombie subject matter might mark it as an easy choice for a feature film adaptation, the fractured “oral history” style structure of “World War Z” doesn’t exactly lend itself to the medium. Despite the fact that filming is well under way on the zombie flick, it’s still shocking that the project, which spent…
Article: First wave of 2011 Toronto Film Festival titles announced
Straight from the Twitter feed of festival co-director Cameron Bailey comes the first wave of titles from this year’s Toronto Film Festival. And they are: -“Trishna,” directed by Michael Winterbottom, starring Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed (World Premiere) -“The Lady,” directed by Luc Besson, starring Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis (WP) -“Countdown,” directed by Huh…
Article: “The Tree of Life,” Reviewed
Director Terrence Malick is a magician with a movie camera. But watching his new film, “The Tree of Life,” is like watching a magician perform one trick over and over again for 138 minutes. As amazing as that trick is, when it’s repeated endlessly, it loses some of its luster. In “Tree of Life,” Malick…
Article: Can’t Be At Cannes 2011, Awards Edition
Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” was a front-runner to make last year’s Cannes Film Festival but the film wasn’t finished in time. This year’s Cannes jury decided it was worth the wait, as it gave “The Tree of Life” the festival’s biggest prize, the Palme d’Or at the annual Cannes awards ceremony (the film…
Article: Can’t Be At Cannes 2011, Tuesday Edition
It sucks not being at the Cannes Film Festival. To keep you up-to-speed on all the latest developments with the minimum amount of pain and jealousy, we’ll be providing frequent roundups of all the biggest news and best reviews. This is the third; for additional installments, along with all our Cannes coverage, can be found…
Article: The Five Most Bad Ass Quentin Tarantino Characters
Tonight at 10 p.m. ET we are showing Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic tour de force, “Pulp Fiction”. The movie not only put Tarantino on the map as a writer and director to be reckoned with, but also marked the come backs of both John Travolta and Bruce Willis and reminded the world of the charms of…
Article: “Tree Of Life” Will Premiere at Cannes (Supposedly)
Variety‘s Justin Chang reports that Terrence Malick’s long-awaited film “The Tree of Life” will finally premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. From Chang’s report: “It’s still unclear whether the Fox Searchlight drama starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn will play in or out of competition, a decision that likely will not be made until…
Article: Trailering: Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”
“The Tree of Life”! “The Tree of Life”! “The Tree of Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife”! That is all. Well, okay. The trailer for Terrence Malick’s long, long-awaited new film — starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain — has finally officially hit the web. You can watch it below, but I’d recommend checking it out in HD…
Article: Bogey and Bacall to Biel and Evans: The Art Of The On-Set Romance
At 11 p.m. ET tonight we are showing London. The 2005 film follows Syd (Chris Evans) as he crashes the going away party of his ex-girlfriend, London (Jessica Biel), who is moving to California with her new boyfriend. As one is wont to do when crashing an ex’s party, Syd brings along his friendly neighborhood…
Article: We’re Asking: What’s Your Favorite Terry Gilliam Movie?
We love Terry Gilliam. From his work as Monty Python’s animator-in-chief to his many and sundry hilarious roles in Monty Python’s Flying Circus (on today from 7:05 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ET) to “Life of Brian”, there is nothing about this Python we don’t like. We love Gilliam’s work in front of the camera almost…
Article: ‘Kalifornia’ All The Way
In Kalifornia a photographer (Michelle Forbes) and her writer boyfriend (David Duchovny) head cross country in the foot steps of serial killers. They are writing a book, but inadvertently start their own drama when they ignore every mother’s advice and decide to bring along two drifters Early Grayce (Brad Pitt) and his girlfriend Adele (Juliette…
Article: 13 On-Screen Couples That Were Also Off-Screen Couples
In the new film “Breaking Upwards,” struggling twentysomething couple Daryl and Zoe decide to address their relationship problems by planning and then executing their own breakup. Daryl is played by director/producer/editor/co-writer Daryl Wein, Zoe is played by producer/co-writer Zoe Lister-Jones, and the breakup in the film is based on the one the two went through…
Article: The star-powered movie isn’t dead, it’s just resting.
Wendy Ide at the London Times makes an Oscary point that’s become almost a meme I’d like to dispatch once and for all if I could. She claims the nominations are playing out “a struggle for the future of Hollywood.” But… remember the famous 1996 arthouse shoot-out of “The English Patient,” “Fargo,” “Secrets & Lies”…
Article: The Anti-Blockbuster
Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has been the most discussed film of 2009, and so I’ll assume you’re fluent with its narrative’s yards of entwining taffy and with Christoph Waltz’s entrancing piece of supporting-perf gamesmanship, and so on, and move on toward simply saying it is the best American movie of the year, and an impossible-to-dislike…
Article: The gloves come off on Heath Ledger.
It had to happen eventually. The reverential haze surrounding the late Heath Ledger was bound to dispel. And it’s David Thomson, critic, film historian and actor-crazed obsessive who once wrote a whole book about Nicole Kidman in which he gasped over her “gingery pubic hair,” who’s stepped up to bat first. Thomson takes actors and…
Article: What “Inglourious Basterds” Owes to History
[Spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen "Inglourious Basterds."] There have been two moments in film this year that have moved me to my cine-loving core. Both involved individuals stirred by the power of image, art and mythology. And both illustrated a personal investment for each character (some, real-life characters), revealing a potent significance and…
Article: A Head Without a Heart
When each successive film from a new, audacious talent seems richer and more rewarding than the one before, it can sometimes be hard to tell whether the director is steadily improving or it’s simply taking you some time and effort to learn how to watch his/her movies. Argentina’s Lucrecia Martel arrived on the international film…
Article: Vacillating Voiceovers: A History of Unreliable Narrators
We trust the movies. We have to. Most of them only work if we look up at the images changing 24-times-a-second in front of us and believe that they reflect some sort of objective reality where a man can fly his house to South America or alien robots can transform into cars. Even when a…
