Now that Ewan McGregor has voiced his enthusiasm for playing Obi-Wan Kenobi again, Disney should make it so. The actor, who's out promoting Jack The Giant Slayer told MTV News that he thought reprising his role as the Jedi Master was "a good idea" and had clearly done some thinking about where an Obi-Wan standalone movie could fit into the about-to-be-rebooted Star Wars franchise — the gap between Episode III and IV "before Alec Guinness, there's that period where he's in the desert....That might be my window there, to tell that story." McGregor said that he didn't know what Obi-Wan actually did in the desert, but added: "We could make up some stuff." more »
Here’s a shout-out for Naomi Watts, and I am afraid she'll need it. She's the sole Oscar nominee from director J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible, and that means she has a real uphill climb for a win. Watts is up against four other nominees in the Best Actress category — Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) and 9-year old Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts Of The Southern Wild) — whose movies have the additional momentum of a Best Picture nomination. It's a huge disadvantage now that the Academy at large is voting, not just the actors branch. more »
Golden Globe nominees Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor turned out for a special screening of their epic tearjerker The Impossible and talked to me about how they summoned the emotional wherewithal to play a couple whose family is torn apart by a tsunami. more »
There's a question that The Impossible, the new film from Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage), demands be asked, and that is — is it easier for audiences to relate to tragedy when it's filtered through white characters? This is not a new issue. The movies have a long tradition of approaching stories about people of color, both at home and abroad, through the experiences of Caucasian protagonists, a habit that speaks to both (probably not unfounded) ideas about audience preferences and prejudices and the linked reality of what most of our movie stars still look like. The Impossible is set during the 2004 tsunami that hit South East Asia the day after Christmas, killing over 230,000 people and devastating Indonesia, India, Thailand and other countries, but it's about how one expat family on holiday weathers the tragedy, an uplifting tale of survival and endurance amidst the ruin.
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Also in Friday morning's wrap of news briefs: Variety appoints its new publisher. Shirley MacLaine eyes her next gig. And, take a look at the new Specialty newcomers for the weekend.
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Also in Thursday morning's round-up of news briefs: The National Board of Review releases details for its awards event; Tyler Perry revs up for a second Double Cross; a Toronto heist thriller heads to U.S. theaters; And remembering Dutch actress Syliva Kristel and Japanese director Koji Wakamatsu.
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Also in Friday morning's round-up of news briefs: Ridley Scott gives the low-down on a Blade Runner sequel. Michelle Williams is eyeing a role in a WWII-era drama and a run-down on the weekend's new specialty release offerings.
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Also in Wednesday evening's round-up of news briefs, supernatural thriller Jinn is heading to theaters. The San Diego Film Festival sets slate. And Lydia Hearst joins a horror reboot.
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Also in Tuesday morning's round-up of news briefs, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Tom Hardy team up for an anti-poaching project. Ewan McGregor will receive San Sebastian honors. Morgan Freeman and Elizabeth Banks board an animated project. And fire once again hits Tyler Perry's Atlanta studio.
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Real talk, y'all: The first domestic trailer for Juan Antonio Bayona's disaster drama The Impossible made me a little misty-eyed. Get ready to get your hearts touched by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as parents on vacay with their children who get separated by the devastating 2004 tsunami and attempt to find their way back to each other amid the destruction and chaos. Sniff.
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File under "Too Soon," perhaps: Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor star in The Impossible as a couple on holiday with their two young children in Thailand when the 2004 tsunami tragedy sweeps the region, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in 14 countries. Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage), the disaster drama is based on one family's experience and makes use of realistic CG and sets to recreate the event. And judging from the newly unveiled (and kind of terrifying) Spanish teaser poster, expect an intense treatment of the tragedy as seen through the eyes of the victims on the ground.
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One of the funniest moments during a "meet the jury session" Wednesday afternoon in Cannes came toward the end of a press conference. The annual first-day Q&A has long been a peculiar dance, with jurors giving vague answers about being happy to be on the jury and how they'll pursue the next 11 days viewing all of the competition entries with an open mind. And this year was pretty much no exception: Joined by fellow jurors Ewan McGregor, Diane Kruger, Jean Paul Gaultier, Raoul Peck, Andrea Arnold, Hiam Abbass and Emmanuelle Devos, jury president Nanni Moretti — whose own film Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope) screened in competition here last year — recalled a wall of silence surrounding the jury when he last served many years back.
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The Tourism Promotion Board of the Middle Eastern country of Yemen would like to thank Ewan McGregor and the makers of the romantic dramedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, I'm sure, for inspiring thousands of Brits to consider their own soul-searching retreats to the nation. But you might want to reconsider actually booking that trip, because guess what? There aren't really salmon in the Yemen. And, more importantly: "The Foreign and Commonwealth Office last month issued a red warning over the Yemen, telling visitors to 'avoid all travel to the whole country.' It warns that attacks against western and British interests could be indiscriminate, including targets such as residential compounds, military and oil facilities, and transport and aviation interests." [Telegraph via Movie City News]
The Cannes jury is now complete. The Descendants director Alexander Payne and actor Ewan McGregor have joined the festival's competition jury, which will judge the 65th annual event's 22 films in competition. They join previously announced jury president Italian director Nanni Moretti (We Have a Pope) who will announce the Cannes winners on stage at the closing ceremonies on May 27th.
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Although it’s set in the present, the characters in Lasse Hallström’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen seem to have been imported from a different time. The good ones behave in a courtly manner and speak in dignified tones and the rascals twinkle and flounce. Often the effect of Simon Beaufoy’s script (adapted from Paul Torday’s 2007 novel) is refreshing, due in no small part to the congenital irresistibility of the actors speaking his lines -- Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas. It’s when the adorably priggish Cary Grant type is accused of having Asperger’s by his plucky but labile future love interest and the benevolent Sheik bankrolling the duo’s wacky experiment is nearly assassinated by Yemeni jihadists that things get to feel a little pear-shaped.
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