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Movie Preview: Robert De Niro in Everybody's Fine

BuzzSugar — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:00:20 -0700

I kind of love every movie about grown children going home to their parents - Home for the Holidays, Junebug, The Family Stone. There's just so much fodder for humor and emotion.

But in Everybody's Fine, none of Robert De Niro's grown children go home to visit him, sending him on a journey to visit each one of his offspring. Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, and Kate Beckinsale star as the trio of "kids" - pretty cute cast, right? You know what's even cuter? De Niro as a caring father and grandpa. Don't get me wrong - I love him in the heavy, dramatic stuff, but when I see him as a family man, I melt like butter. Family matters aren't always all lightness though, and it looks like we can expect some complicated interactions, too. Even if it's a bit sappy, I'm looking forward to this one.

To see the trailer, just read more.

Photo courtesy of Miramax

2009 Tribeca Film Festival Spotlight: Moon

BuzzSugar — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:30:29 -0700

I've been perusing the long list of interesting-looking movies scheduled for this year's Tribeca Film Festival, which starts this week. Some of them, like Moon, are already earning buzz, and I'm anxious to find out what festivalgoers think once they've screened.

Starring Sam Rockwell, Moon is the directorial debut of David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones. The movie has already built some momentum from this year's Sundance Film Festival and now there's a trailer for it. And the trailer is creepy.

The movie takes place in the not-so-distant future and follows astronaut Sam Bell (Rockwell) who is completing a three-year stint on the moon where his only company has been a computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey) named GERTY. From the looks of the trailer, all that time alone on the moon starts to seriously affect Sam's emotional state. Most of the reviews so far say that this is a pretty terrific entry to the sci-fi/horror genre that's buoyed by a great performance from Rockwell.

Ready to see for yourself? Just read more.

Moon at IGN.com

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Buzz News Roundup, 2/11

BuzzSugar — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:30:34 -0800

The upcoming movie The Soloist is inspiring at least 174 orchestras in 46 states to participate in food drives. - AP
Showtime has renewed United States of Tara for a second season. - Variety
In other renewal news, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers and Sisters are rumored to be getting early pickups from ABC. - TV.com
Mark Valley will star in a Fox pilot called Human Target, while Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Johnston are officially cast in the Absolutely Fabulous remake. - TV Guide
Woody Allen has set Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins to star in the film he wrote and will shoot in London this Summer. - ComingSoon
Tom Cruise is in talks to star with Denzel Washington in the David Cronenberg-directed thriller The Matarese Circle. - Variety
Brad Paisley leads the Academy of Country Music Awards nominations with six nods. - AP
Sam Rockwell has joined Hilary Swank in the legal drama Betty Anne Waters. - The Hollywood Reporter

Photo courtesy of Paramount

Buzz News Roundup, 1/9

BuzzSugar — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:30:01 -0800

Breaking Bad will return in March and Mad Men should start up again in the Summer - even though Matthew Weiner still doesn't have a contract. - Zap2it
Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell are in talks to star as the villains in Iron Man 2. - The Hollywood Reporter
Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried are set to star in the thriller Chloe. - ComingSoon
ER is getting three more episodes and the next John Wells show, Police, is getting six. - The Hollywood Reporter
Steven Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can will be turned into a Broadway musical by the writers who adapted Hairspray for the stage. - Variety
Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to take the lead in Beating the Reaper, a thriller based on Josh Bazell's as-yet unpublished novel. - Zap2It
Dennis Rodman and Joan and Melissa Rivers are among the contestants for the next Celebrity Apprentice. - SavvySugar
Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Hall, Michael Cera, Noel Clarke and Toby Kebbell are the five actors in the running for the BAFTA Orange Rising Star award. - Variety
Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan will star in The Way Back, a movie based on the memoir by Slavomir Rawicz. - ComingSoon

Photos courtesy of AMC

Frost/Nixon: A Solid and Entertaining Talkathon

BuzzSugar — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:30:01 -0800

Doubt and Frost/Nixon have a lot in common: Both are stage-to-screen adaptations, both are receiving a lot of awards buzz, and neither has a particularly compelling visual story to tell. Instead, the drama lies in the words people are saying. I've heard both of these movies referred to as "grown-up" cinema, which is probably apt given that it takes a pretty mature attention span to fully appreciate them.

All this might sound a bit boring but Frost/Nixon actually ends up being just the opposite. Playwright/screenwriter Peter Morgan is proving to be an expert at lifting the curtain on some of history's most intriguing leaders and applying his imagination to the factual outlines of their lives (he also wrote The Queen and The Last King of Scotland). To see why I think Morgan - with the help of director Ron Howard - has created another smart and absorbing movie, read more.

Frost/Nixon revisits some familiar cinematic ground with Richard Nixon. The disgraced thirty-seventh President of the United States has come to symbolize so many things and is often regarded as a deeply flawed, morally-challenged, Machiavellian caricature of himself. That's fun stuff for dramatists! It's no wonder everyone from Oliver Stone to Gene Hackman has tackled the man. Heck, there's even a book called Nixon at the Movies. But Morgan, Howard and Co. tell a new story with this movie, a story of the president's post-resignation TV inquisition by the most unlikely journalist/TV personality.

Frost (played by Michael Sheen reprising his stage role) is the underdog in this scenario who will take numerous punches while interviewing President Nixon (Frank Langella, who also originated the role on stage). Langella's Nixon is giant and lumbering and doesn't bear all that much resemblance to the actual guy. The power of his performance lies in the way he conveys the complexities and emotions of a man who was practically kicked out of the White House.

Frost sets out to resuscitate his career by getting Nixon to sit down for a multi-session television interview with the metaphorical death blow being when he corners the president into giving the American people the confession of guilt he'd thus far avoided. Frost and his research team (played with humor and charm by Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, and the super cute Matthew Macfadyen) come up against all kinds of obstacles in between each sit-down - including getting someone to pay for and air the interview. Meanwhile, Nixon's intellect and question-dodging abilities prove to be formidable, giving this talkfest most of its nail-biting moments.

In retrospect it's amazing that so much talking between two men about familiar events can lend itself to such a natural dramatic arc. This is a well-matched duel between two giant egos. Both are in it for something but only one can triumph. Nixon is a tough beast to slay, but just when you think Frost is down, you can bet (as is the case in most movies based on a match like this) the little guy will eventually rally. All in all, it's a smart movie that manages to get your adrenaline pumping with lots of words.

Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures

Movie Preview: Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon

BuzzSugar — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:45:47 -0700

"There's a reason they called him Tricky Dick."

The international trailer for the new Ron Howard movie, Frost/Nixon, has arrived and from what I can tell it looks pretty amazing. Based on the well-received play of the same title by Peter Morgan (the same man who wrote the script for The Queen), the movie chronicles the true story of a series of televised interviews Nixon gave to British journalist David Frost in 1977. Both lead actors in the movie played the same roles on the stage: Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost.

This is a really good trailer and I'm trying to figure out what's so gripping. Obviously the story is an interesting one but it doesn't look like it's presented in an overly simplistic way, and I get the sense that the shades of grey that defined this moment in time are handled with care. Also, the cast looks stellar. Langella appears to be pulling off Nixon just fine, Sheen already has me pinned to my seat, and then throw in Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt and Rebecca Hall and I'm sold.

If you want to learn more about the play, check out this interesting clip of The Charlie Rose show. The movie opens December 5 (hopefully) and to check out the trailer for yourself, read more.

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Movie Preview: Choke

BuzzSugar — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:01:20 -0700

Hey, all you fans of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk - the trailer from the movie adaptation of his fourth book Choke is tonally what one might expect from him: quite dark and post-modern in its despair, with an odd, social outcast as the main character. Oh, and funny, of course. Also, just like Fight Club, there are group therapy scenes as this character is a bit of a sex addict.

The movie received a lot of good buzz coming out of this year's Sundance Film Festival, even winning the Special Jury Prize. The film hits theaters August 1 and stars Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Houston, and an actress I'm always excited to see onscreen again (especially after her performance in No Country for Old Men), Kelly Macdonald.

Who read the book? Are you excited to see this on the big screen? To check out the trailer for yourself, read more.

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Joshua: Eerie Little Family Drama

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:46:35 -0700

Watching Joshua, I was struck with the sense of no longer being in this time period - even though the movie is set in present day Manhattan. There's something old-fashioned, slow-building and just-under-the-surface eerie about the film, and in that way it differs from your average mainstream thriller. Not much happens, and the gradual building of suspense requires quite a bit of patience. But if you're a fan of old Hitchcock films, Joshua is a satisfying modern option.

Well-off Manhattan parents Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby (Vera Farmiga) have a beautiful life: They live in a gorgeous apartment on the Upper East Side, have a son Joshua (Jacob Kogan) who appears to be a kind of child prodigy, and just brought home a baby girl, Lily. As soon as Lily arrives in the house, however, their perfect lives start to slowly unravel and ultimately spiral wildly out of control. To find out what starts to happen, read more

Lily takes to crying for hours on end, wearing at Abby's sanity. It doesn't help that Joshua, a creepy, precocious child, has started acting out in bizarre ways, purportedly on account of his new baby sister joining the family. But Joshua's behavior takes a sinister turn, and as he plays mind games with his father, we feel at times sorry for the boy or baffled by his cold actions. Both his parents are ultimately - and frighteningly - rendered helpless to his manipulations.

What I found most intriguing about the movie was its disturbingly naturalistic vibe. This isn't a movie about supernatural or paranormal activity. They never explore the idea that the child is possessed by the devil, though his problems also don't stem from some kind of drug or brainwashing. And yet his behavior is far beyond that of a normal older sibling trying to come to terms with a new kid in the family. As producer Jonathan Dorfman is quoted as saying in the press materials, "The idea that a kid might be bad for no apparent reason is one of our scariest thoughts." The filmmakers clearly play on this fear in the movie, and they bring the uneasiness of this idea to a harrowing - if quiet - pitch.

Photos courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Movie Preview: Joshua

BuzzSugar — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:27:08 -0700

Personally, I think there are few things creepier than little kids acting all spooky. Maybe it's because I think of kids as being loud and energetic, so when they dress like little businessmen and look at me with that solemn, unblinking gaze, it gives me the chills.

Such is the case in Joshua, a thriller that earned much acclaim earlier this year at Sundance. As IMDB describes it, "The arrival of a newborn girl causes the gradual disintegration of the Cairn family; particularly for 9-year-old Joshua (Jacob Kogan), an eccentric boy whose proper upbringing and refined tastes both take a sinister turn." The trailer is eerily slow-building, already conveying a suspenseful atmosphere. And boy, is that kid creepy. The movie's already out in select cities and will open in more theaters throughout July, so check your local listings. To see the trailer for Joshua, read more

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What to TiVo: Thursday

BuzzSugar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:50:25 -0700

ABC is new with FlashForward, Grey's Anatomy, and Private Practice
CBS is new with Survivor, CSI, and The Mentalist
FOX has Game 2 of the World Series
NBC is new with Community, Parks and Recreation, The Office, and 30 Rock
The CW is new with Vampire Diaries and Supernatural
Bravo is new with Real Housewives of Atlanta
FX is new with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The League
Lifetime is new with Project Runway
Comedy Central is new with The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report
MTV is new with World's Strictest Parents
VH1 has Behind the Music: Lil Wayne
Late-night highlights include Tom Hanks and Weezer on The Late Show With David Letterman on CBS; Tina Fey on The Jay Leno Show on NBC; Denis Leary and The Swell Season on The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien on NBC; Jason Schwartzman and Rod Stewart on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC; Carrie Fisher and Sam Rockwell on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on NBC; and Derek Luke on Last Call With Carson Daly on NBC