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Movie Preview: Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman in Invictus

BuzzSugar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:30:12 -0700

Hope you haven't OD'd on Matt Damon yet! Just yesterday I showed you a preview of his upcoming Jason Bourne-esque action flick, Green Zone and today we get a peek at Invictus. In the upcoming film from Clint Eastwood, Damon stars as a Francois Pienaar, real-life member of South Africa's rugby team who's summoned by Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) to rally support in the country and unite the racial divide.

I love Matt Damon, but I'm actually more interested in Freeman's performance in Invictus. It looks like one well-done biopic, and it's obviously Freeman's Oscar film - although I'm sure Damon doing an accent could translate into a nomination for him around awards time, too. (Not to mention that many things Eastwood touches turn to Oscar nods).

Warning: If cheering crowd scenes and African singing often play with your emotions, you may get goose bumps while watching this preview. Check it out, and tell me what you think when you read more.

The Dark Knight: Tense, Sad, Unsettling - And One of the Best Movies I've Seen in Years

BuzzSugar — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:30:27 -0700

"This town deserves a better class of criminal." – The Joker

Indeed. And by extension, audiences deserve a better class of villain. In The Dark Knight, we get one. Director Christopher Nolan seems to have a keen understanding that we want our heroes to be badass - but we want our villains to be way badder. The movie tells a story about Batman, sure, but really, this is The Joker's tale. Even when it's Batman's story. . . The Joker owns it.

The Dark Knight is unlike almost any other superhero movie that came before it. It's insanely dark, it's melancholy, it doesn't leave you with a great sense of peace. But the thing is, we can handle it. I think this is Nolan giving audiences some credit. And every superhero tale has these themes of good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, hero vs. villain. It's just that this one doesn't sugarcoat these things at all. And why should they be sugarcoated? The superhero's tale is actually the perfect vehicle for exploring these things, and explore them we do. Nolan brings us an affecting, disturbingly dark tale, and one that could easily be seen as an allegory for the goings-on of today's world (terrorism vs. peace, cowardice vs. heroism, etc.). To see more what I mean (and I promise - no spoilers), read more.

Christian Bale reprises his role as the manly, gravel-voiced Batman by night and the wealthy Bruce Wayne by day. Michael Caine again dryly charms his way through the role of Bruce's helpful butler Alfred, and Gary Oldman is again the likable Commissioner Gordon. Maggie Gyllenhaal gives Rachel Dawes, Bruce's love interest and Gotham City's District Attorney, some much-needed depth and chutzpah. In this installment, there's an evil mastermind on the loose, terrorizing Gotham, and his name is The Joker. As The Joker continues to taunt Batman, trying to get him to break his noble moral code of beating the bad guys without actually harming anyone, the body count rises and Joker gets closer and closer to forcing the citizens of Gotham City to turn on each other. He is the greatest fearmonger of all time.

Heath Ledger is thoroughly mesmerizing as Joker. Should we be talking Oscars? Absolutely. I haven't seen a performance so impeccably realized, so desperately truthful in a long, long time. However, another impressive performance comes from Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, Gotham's great white hope for a safer, Joker-less future. His mixture of political-minded bravado and inner turmoil makes for a far more layered character than one might expect.

In perhaps my favorite scene - one that is so exciting, and yet so agonizing - we get both of these tortured souls, The Joker and Harvey Dent, alone together. The outcome of this scene is a profound sense of despair because in it we witness how quickly people can shift from good to evil, and how easy and nonsensical violence is. On Joker's part, there is no real reasoning behind his cruel madness, and we're reminded that sometimes evil simply exists for no good reason. It taps into a very real, basic and horrible fear: that in this world where terrorism could lurk anywhere, where chaos and war and murder exist, we struggle continuously to figure out "why?" The Joker represents our most feared response to that question: There is no reason.

Then again, here is another truth: Sometimes people choose good over evil, no matter what. Some will surprise you with their unselfishness. There is a lot of bleakness in this film, but there is also hope.

Of course, compounding the darkness of the movie is the maddening real-life tragedy that is forever intertwined with it. An unsettling side effect of Ledger's death is that we will never see the man behind the garish, horrifying makeup. And in this sense, the Joker is forever, hauntingly alive. There’s no Heath Ledger to do the late-night TV show circuit or the red carpet interviews. He's not coming out from behind the screen to reassure us, "No, no, it's all an act. Here I am, just a guy, just an actor, see?" Logically, we're adults who understand that the Joker doesn't exist. And yet. . . Ledger's absence causes the tiniest of doubts in the back of our minds, the part that's still on board for superhero movies. With no one telling us otherwise, we're left with the cryptic suggestion that the Joker might very well be. . . real.

This is partly what has left me with such a sense of uneasiness since watching the movie, and one of the things that is keeping The Dark Knight at the forefront of my mind. But even beyond that, the film is so well-written, thrillingly suspenseful, action-packed and brilliantly acted. It's all the things we want in a superhero movie - along with a whole bunch of dark, thorny morality issues tossed in.

All told: It. Is. Amazing.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

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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Damon and Eastwood Join Freeman for Nelson Mandela Movie

BuzzSugar — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:31:39 -0700

Clint Eastwood is set to direct a script based on the true-life events documented in the book, The Human Factor: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed the World by John Carlin. Matt Damon will play star rugby player Francois Pienaar who befriended Nelson Mandela (who, as we learned a while back, will be portrayed by Morgan Freeman) during the run-up to a game that "gave whites and blacks in South Africa a common cause to rally around as the country was trying to heal from the wounds of apartheid."

Morgan Freeman is producing the film, and he first sought Mandela's blessing before approaching Eastwood. With this amazing talent, remarkable story and, yes, Matt Damon as a rugby player, I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about this dramatic project.

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Movie Preview: The Dark Knight

BuzzSugar — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:26:45 -0800

Finally! The Dark Knight trailer currently being shown before I Am Legend in theaters is online in a version that's not a shaky bootleg taken with someone's camera phone!

However, so far the only versions of the 6-minute clip from the Dark Knight, also shown before I Am Legend, are those jerky, low-quality bootlegs, like this one. Stay tuned for a better quality version, sure to hit the Internet before too long.

The trailer features a lot of Joker, as expected, and far less of our husky-voiced Batman. Thus, this heavy-on-the-Joker movie looks terrifying. I was genuinely frightened by a two-minute movie preview.

That Heath Ledger and his sinister laugh will haunt my dreams. To check out the chilling trailer for Dark Knight and discuss read more.

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Link Time! 11/6

BuzzSugar — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:32:21 -0800

TV Squad mulls the news that ER could get one more season.
Forget voicing Beowulf, Ray Winstone wants to talk Indiana Jones 4 over on the MTV Movies Blog.
Popwatch decides Prison Break is "going nowhere slowly." On the other hand, TV with MeeVee thinks the show could teach 24 a few lessons.
Pretty Much Amazing rounds up the Arcade Fire's covers of Springsteen, the Smiths, and Clinic.
TV Filter has some suggestions for the fourth season of Weeds.
Head over to AquariumDrunkard for a review of the companion soundtrack to the Bob Dylan movie I'm Not There.
Give Me My Remote wonders: What one TV episode is on your desert island list?
Cinematical has a weird vintage clip of a young Morgan Freeman on the old television show The Electric Company.
Stereogum has a new live video of Wilco playing at Austin City Limits.

Photo courtesy of NBC

Movie Preview: Wanted

BuzzSugar — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:34:51 -0700

Just this week we got ahold of some stills from the James McAvoy/Angelina Jolie/Morgan Freeman action movie Wanted, and now there's a full-length trailer to go along with them. If nothing else, this movie is impeccably cast. Angelina does her usual catlike sexy action star thing while Morgan Freeman is all-knowing and no-nonsense. James McAvoy looks good (as usual) playing the inexperienced guy who becomes an unlikely assassin, following in his father's footsteps.

The trailer is visually awesome, and I like that Freeman provides dramatic voiceover
as we watch Wesley (McAvoy) get schooled in the ways of this "fraternity of assassins." Wanted opens March 28, 2008. To check out the trailer, read more

Wanted - Trailer
Uploaded by Jinx-fr

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Photos Pop Up for Wanted, Starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy

BuzzSugar — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:56:50 -0700

It doesn't open until March 28, 2008 but the new photo stills from the film Wanted have piqued my interest in the film in a big way. In particular, I'm talking about this crazy image with the shattering glass and David O'Hara's face which I find to be awful and completely mesmerizing all at once.

The stills are from Empire and they feature some pretty great - and greatly attractive - actors, like James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. The movie follows Wesley (McAvoy) who finds out his father is an assassin. Then, "when his father is murdered, the son is recruited into his father's old organization and trained by a man named Sloan (Freeman) to follow in his dad's footsteps."

To check out the rest of the images from Wanted, read more

View 5 Photos ›

Feast of Love: Sweet But Not Filling

BuzzSugar — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:36:14 -0700

There are certainly some lovable things about Feast of Love. I love Morgan Freeman. I love the peaceful Oregon setting. I love watching Greg Kinnear do what he does best - play the blithely unaware guy. The movie aims to be a romantic weepie, and there are a few tears and there is some romance. There are good performances and a few sweet, truthful scenes. But all the elements put together make for a narrative that mopes along with a couple lightning bolts of drama trying to jolt us out of our stupor. In the end, it's a pretty unfulfilling "feast."

The story mostly revolves around the lovelorn Bradley (Kinnear) and his terrible luck, Harry's (Freeman) grief over having lost his son, and a young couple dealing with new love, minor money troubles, and an ominous psychic reading. Bradley marries one woman (Selma Blair) only to have her realize she is a lesbian and run off with - who else? - the shortstop on a rival softball team. Then Bradley finds another woman (Radha Mitchell) who can't seem to pull herself away from a man she's had an affair with for a long time. There is no shortage of naked breasts or lovemaking scenes while either the night sky looks on or the pounding rain provides a soundtrack. There's more to this movie than just that, though, so read more

In the meantime, Harry mostly dispenses a lot of kindly advice and privately continues to grieve for his dead son while shutting out his compassionate wife (Jane Alexander, in a role similar to the one she plays on "Tell Me You Love Me"). For a while I was very concerned that there would be some dumb twist where Harry was actually a figment of everyones' imaginations, but thankfully the story never delves into those tricks. The nicest aspect of the story is the relationship between Chloe (one half of the young couple, played sweetly by Alexa Davalos) and Harry as he becomes a kind of surrogate father to her.

On paper, I'm sure the script seemed really beautiful. And combined with these great actors, how could they go wrong? I'm not sure how they did, but they did. The audience around me was palpably restless and at times even I found myself making a to-do list in my head and checking my watch. I would recommend seeing this film if you a) want to cry and just need an excuse, b) have a ton of patience, and/or c) are feeling sick and need something relatively tame to lull you to sleep. Otherwise, skip it and wait for these great actors to find better projects.

Photos courtesy of MGM

Movie Preview: Feast of Love

BuzzSugar — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:27:25 -0700

As I mentioned in my romantic roundup of fall movies, Feast of Love is a little romantic drama starring Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear and Selma Blair. It takes place in Oregon and focuses on Bradley's (Kinnear) terrible luck with the ladies and how he learns all sorts of lessons on love from the various people in his life. Going out on a limb here, I assume Freeman's character doles out endless bits of sage advice. The movie opens September 28, so to check out the slightly cheesy trailer, read more

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