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James McAvoy May Star in Redford's Lincoln Movie

BuzzSugar — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:30:58 -0700

Can there ever be too much James McAvoy news in one day? I think not. Especially when one news item pairs the adorable actor up with Seth Rogen and another item has him possibly acting in a movie directed by Robert Redford. Titled The Conspirator, Redford's film is described as an indie historical drama about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Interestingly, though, the project will be focused on a woman: Mary Surratt, the alleged conspirator of assassin John Wilkes Booth. Here's more on the woman's story:

Surratt's is a compelling story. A Washington D.C. boardinghouse owner who sympathized with the Confederates, she was allegedly part of the plot to kill Lincoln, supplying Wilkes Booth and his accomplice David Herold weapons at her tavern after the assassin had shot the president at Ford's Theater.

Surratt's son John was also alleged to be part of the conspiracy. Mary Surratt was eventually convicted and hanged for conspiring to kill the president; her son went on the lam and eventually was put on trial but was never convicted, living until 1916.

The pic will also center on a young Union hero named Frederick Aiken who was appointed to defend Mary Surratt, and who comes to believe that the widow is innocent.

McAvoy is reportedly at the top of a list of potential actors for one of the lead roles, though no news yet on who will play the conspiratorial leading lady. I have loved seeing McAvoy in period pieces (Atonement and Becoming Jane, particularly) so this should be good. Now we just need to know who will take the main female role - any suggestions on who should play Mary Surratt?

James McAvoy Jumps Aboard Seth Rogen's Cancer Comedy

BuzzSugar — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:30:00 -0700

I know, I know - the words "cancer" and "comedy" don't exactly go together, but Seth Rogen and James McAvoy are ready to make us believe otherwise. The guys are set to star in a film adaptation of Will Reiser's novel, I'm With Cancer. Reiser also wrote the screenplay, which tells the story of his own experience battling and defeating cancer in his 20s. The movie will be directed by Nicole Holofcener, and Rogen will pull double duty as a producer.

McAvoy will star as Reiser's onscreen counterpart, and I have to say that I'm excited to see him return to comedy. He first caught my eye as the wacky brother in Wimbledon (yes, I love that movie and will not be ashamed), but since then it's been mostly heavy stuff like Atonement and The Last King of Scotland. As for Rogen, I just hope he's ready to start answering a lot of questions about why he chose this project right after Funny People - back-to-back comedies about terminal illness?

James McAvoy, Elizabeth Banks Team Up For Dark Comedy

BuzzSugar — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:30:54 -0700

Aww, this cast is so adorable: James McAvoy, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Friel and Laura Linney have all signed on for the dark comedy The Details. No real details yet on Friel or Linney's roles, but apparently the story centers on a couple, to be played by McAvoy and Banks, "who discover an infestation of raccoons in their back yard. Disagreements over how to deal with the animals lead to an escalating series of events."

There's not too much to say about this project yet besides the fact that I'm so intrigued to see Banks and McAvoy together onscreen. I never would have thought of pairing up these two, but now that I think about it, this seems like it could be really funny (and McAvoy is always very easy to watch, of course). Who else would you want to see teamed up with James McAvoy? Do you think he and Banks will do well together?

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McAvoy and Blunt Join Elton John for Gnomeo and Juliet

BuzzSugar — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:31:09 -0700

"Gnomeo!" It makes me giggle.

The big news in the animation world today has to do with Shakespeare, Elton John and a star-crossed garden gnome couple voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt. It sounds so cute my teeth are starting to ache.

Apparently Gnomeo and Juliet has been in the works for several years, with various other talent involved (Kate Winslet, Tim Rice). Now, the CGI-animated movie will blend Elton John's well-known songs (and some new ones) with a story based on one of Shakespeare's most well-known works. The Hollywood Reporter has more details:

In the loose and edgy adaptation of Shakespeare's play, McAvoy (Atonement) and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) would play lovers from rival gardens. John, who is producing alongside his offscreen partner David Furnish, Baker Bloodworth and Steve Hamilton Shaw, is said to be pursuing big-name talent to voice supporting roles.

I'm not the biggest fan of Elton John, but this sounds like it could be just so adorable. I mean, the Romeo and Juliet story's been played. . .but not by garden gnomes!

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Box Office: Cuteness Will Always Triumph

BuzzSugar — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:30:12 -0700

The cutest robot to hit the screen in a long time, Wall-E, proved irresistible to audiences over the weekend, earning the top spot at the box office with an estimated $62.5 million. According to Variety, this is the third best opening for a Pixar film after The Incredibles ($70.5 million) and Finding Nemo ($70.2 million).

The Angelina Jolie-James McAvoy action flick Wanted nabbed the No. 2 spot with a respectable $51 million, and Get Smart stayed strong in the third spot earning $20 million over the weekend.

While most had adorable robots on the brain this weekend, some were still looking for some big panda fun and kept Kung Fu Panda going strong at No. 4, beating The Incredible Hulk which landed in the fifth spot.

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures

Wanted: Overflowing With Blood, Bullets, Testosterone

BuzzSugar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:36:31 -0700

A few things Wanted is not: quiet or steadily shot. It's also not all that enjoyable. But then again, I'm surely not the target audience for this film. Watching the early trailers for the movie I was initially intrigued by the visuals - the way you can see every shard of glass as someone leaps out a window, for example. But the repetition of the same old thing - no matter how cool at first - gets tiresome, as is the case with the visuals (and the gratuitous violence) in Wanted. Often set to loud, racing music (or loud, brooding music), much of the movie would be better used in 3-minute segments on MTV (or whichever channel actually plays music videos).

James McAvoy plays poor, spineless Wesley, an accountant with major anxiety issues who is full of self-loathing, perhaps due to being walked over all the time. His boss is a heinously abusive woman, his coworker is sleeping with his girlfriend (who's also heinously abusive), and he just lets it all happen to him. Then he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie), a hot lady who tells him his heretofore absent father was actually a talented member of an assassins circle known as The Fraternity and was recently killed by a rogue member of the group. The Fraternity's leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman) recruits Wesley into the ring because Wesley has special assassin abilities and they need him to go after his father's murderer. What follows is a story of the unlikely pipsqueak "everyman" becoming an action hero by being as violent as possible. For more on this, read more.

The bottom line of the mostly weak story is that men can't be happy or in control of their lives unless they are violent. True, in this case Wesley doesn't even remotely stand up for himself in the beginning, and people should try not to be doormats. But Wesley learning to toughen up and be a man means getting horribly beaten (though nothing a warm, magical bath can't cure!) and then learning how to brutalize and kill others without that pesky conscience weighing in. And not that it's unusual in this genre, but women are barely included - oh, except for the smoking Hottie McFierce whose name in this case hilariously says it all (Fox) and who exists to slither around killing people and somehow beating Wesley to a pulp with her matchstick arms.

The gore is, I guess, supposed to be so preposterous that it's almost funny, which has been known to happen, like in Shoot 'Em Up. Or perhaps it's meant to be stylistic, in the vein of Kill Bill. But there's something insanely off about the violence in this movie, as though it means not just to entertain but to provoke people to be violent themselves. It's so sexy! Look how hot Angelina Jolie is! Don't you want to be like Angelina Jolie, or be the kind of guy who gets Angelina Jolie to respect him? Being a man - being a strong person in general - is achieved only through violence and aggression, and the visuals, the music, the pumping adrenaline coursing through James McAvoy make it all appear seductive, easy, and fun.

Oh, and we get to watch rats full of peanut butter explode. Yeah. Rats full of peanut butter.

I would say it's not slow-moving because the story clips along swiftly, but director Timur Bekmambetov seems extraordinarily obsessed with slow-motion, and the movie is probably about 20 minutes total if all those slowed-down moments of brutality and bullets slicing through air were run at normal speed. In truth, Wanted is pretty long for what it is: a testosterone-fueled bloodbath with a cute protagonist.

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What Was Truly the Best Movie Kiss of the Year?

BuzzSugar — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:01:07 -0700

This Sunday June 1, the MTV Movie Awards will strike again and while they aren't the most prestigious awards around, they at least get creative with their nomination categories. My favorite: Best Kiss.

Here are the nominees:

Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey, Enchanted
Briana Evigan and Robert Hoffman, Step Up 2 the Streets
Shia LaBeouf and Sarah Roemer, Disturbia
Ellen Page and Michael Cera, Juno
Daniel Radcliffe and Katie Leung, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I would love it if Ellen Page and Michael Cera won and then reenacted their kiss during the acceptance speech. But I have a feeling The LaBeouf will take that win.

Anyway, is it just me or were there some way better kisses this year than these nominees? There's a great scene in Waitress where Kerri Russell's character imagines a gorgeous kiss with her doctor friend (Nathan Fillion, anyone?) for example. Or hello? The library kisses between Keira Knightley and James McAvoy in Atonement!

Do you agree with this list or are there others you would add? What were some of the great on-screen kisses of the year (and by "this year" I guess we're talking all or most of 2007 since Disturbia came out in April of that year)?

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Leo Tolstoy Biopic Shaping Up Nicely

BuzzSugar — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:30:00 -0700

Director Michael Hoffman's (A Midsummer Night's Dream, One Fine Day, Soapdish) Leo Tolstoy biopic The Last Station begins shooting April 7 in Germany with several more high-quality players on board. Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer join Paul Giamatti, James McAvoy, and McAvoy's wife Anne-Marie Duff in the film, which is based on Jay Parini's 1990 novel. Mirren and Plummer are replacing Meryl Streep and Anthony Hopkins in these roles.

According to Variety, the movie follows "the turbulent final year in the life of the Russian writer and philosopher and his troubled marriage." Plummer will play Tolstoy and Mirren will step into the role of Tolstoy's wife Sofia. Here's more:

Giamatti plays Tolstoy's trusted follower Chertkov, a supporter of the writer's nonviolent socialist Christian movement who becomes Sofia's cunning adversary, while McAvoy plays a naive private secretary sent by Chertkov to work for Tolstoy. British actress Anne-Marie Duff. . .stars as Tolstoy's daughter Sasha.

Interestingly, the movie has been largely financed by German film subsidy organizations, like the German Federal Film Board and the Federal Film Fund. Looks like the money is going to good use - this is one incredibly talented cast.

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Penelope: Fanciful But Not Fantastic

BuzzSugar — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:45:03 -0800

There are some intriguing issues buried within the story of Penelope: what it means for a woman to love and accept herself the way she is, the way beauty ideals are - sometimes cruelly - passed down from mother to daughter, society's eagerness to vilify those who are different and then, just as quickly, to embrace them as "cute" upon discovering that they're harmless. These things are touched on, but mostly with a glazing brush, leaving the pretty film with adorable people lacking anything resembling "oomph."

The story follows Penelope Wilhern who, due to a curse put on her wealthy socialite family long ago, was born with a pig nose. In order to break the curse, she must find "one of her own" (i.e. a "blue blood") to love her just as she is and marry her. Only then will the spell break and her nose take on a normal shape. Desperate to break the curse and have a normal daughter, Penelope's mother (Catherine O'Hara) devotes her life to finding Penelope a husband, but the men who meet Penelope keep jumping out the window at the sight of her. Meanwhile, a one-eyed journalist determined to get a photo of "the pig-faced girl" and a selfish blue-blooded young man pay a down-on-his-luck musician (James McAvoy) to try and woo Penelope. For more about the movie than just this plot - some spoilers ahead - read more.

Visually, the fanciful made-up world providing the backdrop for this modern fairy tale is endearing and at times quite lovely. The performances are mostly great - I especially enjoy Reese Witherspoon in her funny, tough girl role as Penelope's friend, a wonderful departure from Witherspoon's bright and sometimes two-dimensional rom-com stuff. James McAvoy is lovable as always, and Catherine O'Hara as Penelope's hysterical mother sometimes steals the show.

My favorite performance comes from Peter Dinklage who plays the desperate journalist. Not only is he a master of deadpan humor, but he's perhaps the only person in the film who goes on any kind of identifiable emotional arc. We're supposed to be on Penelope's journey, but Ricci has a hard time fluctuating the tone of her performance beyond a steady whine. Thus, the few good performances can't make up for Ricci's low-octane delivery and a disappointing cop-out ending.

This tired, predictable ending features Penelope learning to accept herself and being rewarded with what she's always wanted. The message within this is frustrating. Penelope's final, hard-won self-acceptance, once found, is rendered useless and thrown out the window because that's when she becomes "normal." Phew! Now she no longer needs to like being different. Normal is still best. How refreshing.

Bottom line: It's a modern fairy tale that still supports age-old beauty ideals and doesn't really try anything new or interesting.

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Best Picture Breakdown: Atonement

BuzzSugar — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:30:56 -0800

From now until the 2008 Oscars air on Sunday night, I'll be breaking down the five contenders for Best Picture, giving you the scoop on why each film could win and why it might not stand a chance. So far, I've taken a look at There Will Be Blood and Michael Clayton. Today's Best Picture nominee is Atonement.

Pride and Prejudice director Joe Wright works his magic with another desperately romantic drama, this one taking place in England before and during WWII. At the age of 13, imaginative aspiring writer Briony misconstrues a situation she witnesses and brings grave charges against her sister Cecilia's (Keira Knightley) lover, Robbie (James McAvoy). The terrible repercussions of this false accusation haunt Briony for the rest of her life, causing her to seek redemption for her mistake through her writing.

To see what I think about this Best Picture nominee's chances, read more.

Why It Might Win

Along with No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, Atonement has been a darling of the critics' circles thus far. Most importantly, BAFTA soundly rewarded the film and it won the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama.
The film is an all-around success. It's equally impressive on all counts: acting, art direction, costumes, not to mention - most notably, in my opinion - the magnificent score by Dario Marianelli. At the base of it all is Ian McEwan's novel, concisely adapted for screen by Christopher Hampton. Atonement is satisfying to watch because it gets high marks in all regards.
At the most basic level, the story in Atonement is greatly appealing. It's just a good old-fashioned love story, full of war and romance, intrigue and betrayal. All the visual and musical trappings aside, it's an easy tale for people to fall in love with.

Why it Might Not Win

As far as American audiences and critics go, Atonement may be trumped by, well, American stories. The meaty, masculine, violent story told in No Country or the cautionary tale of greed woven by There Will Be Blood may prove more palatable to the Academy.
Along similar lines, Atonement has already been honored many times, specifically with the BAFTA for Best Film. It's hard to say whether the Academy will want to reward the movie on top of that.

Photo courtesy of Focus Features