Also in early Thursday's round-up of news briefs: Rachel Weisz is a possible go for a David Cronenberg project; Tarzan gets new life; And the Dubai International Film Festival rounds out its 2012 program.
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The Bourne Legacy is a passable movie that has the peculiar misfortune of being part of a very successful, influential and distinctive franchise. Box office-wise, this is probably not going to be much of a hardship, but in terms of content and style it definitely suffers in comparison. The Bourne predecessors, particularly the two directed by Paul Greengrass, are by my count some of the most exhilarating action movies in recent cinematic history.
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The first trailer for the Tony Gilroy-helmed spy sequel The Bourne Legacy has arrived, and it's got everything you want: Bone-crunching action, fire extinguisher guns, Rachel Weisz as a hot lady doctor, and Jeremy Renner banging around doing his sensitive-strong mooney-eyed thing (and leaping out of rivers half-naked) as secret agent Aaron Cross. Okay, those are all the things I want from The Bourne Legacy, but the trailer gives us one more essential bit: Explanation as to how and why Renner's been retconned into Bourne lore at all.
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There are so few filmmakers willing to tackle the romantic melodrama these days that Terence Davies’s The Deep Blue Sea is welcome just for its sheer novelty. An adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play, the picture opens with an attempted suicide and ends with an uneasy kind of redemption. It’s a love story with a great deal of furious, elegant handwriting packed between the lines, an exploration of immutable class distinctions and emotional and sexual repression in postwar England. And Rachel Weisz, as a woman who risks everything for the love of the wrong man, carries the mood and subtext of the material safely tucked in her dressing-gown pocket – she’s vulnerable and self-motivated in all the right measures.
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Usually, when the UK's Advertising Standards Authority bans ads with links to film culture, it's for the threat of causing "undue distress to children" or because a suggestively posed Dakota Fanning might corrupt all those virtuous British lasses you always hear about. So it came as a surprise to see the watchdog crack down on something genuinely troublesome: Rachel Weisz Photoshopped to within an inch of her life.
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It's that time again -- time for actors and filmmakers to cross their fingers, for studios and distributors to get out their checkbooks, for bleary-eyed audiences to get their running shoes on, and for all of them to meet up north for the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. As always, their confluence will yield a handful of big-screen surprises, some bitter disappointments, and the usual all-night wheeling and dealing for the best of the fall crop premiering in the week ahead.* Per annual TIFF custom, let's have a browse through the catalog (and a listen to the buzz) at five particular titles you should expect to hear about early and often.
What you may have missed this weekend: The L.A. Film Fest came to a close, Cars 2 zoomed to the top of the box office, and, oh yeah -- Rachel Weisz married Daniel Craig in a super quiet ceremony last week in New York, according to reports. The pair play a married couple in September's Dream House, but what's really sounding great now is the idea of casting Weisz opposite her new hubby in the next Bond film. Whaddya think -- could Drachel give Brangelina a run for their money? [Daily Mail]
Disney's fantasy prequel pic Oz, the Great and Powerful has set its final witch, Glinda: Michelle Williams, who will team up with James Franco's snake oil salesman/"Wizard" to vie against evil sisters Rachel Weisz (the Wicked Witch of the East) and Mila Kunis (The Wicked Witch of the West) for control of Oz. Word on the street has Franco's salesman as a ladykiller who breezes into Oz and finds himself in the middle of a magical power struggle with romantic plot threads. In other words: Ding-Dong, the Wizard is a pimp. [Variety]
Rachel Weisz may be filling up her dance card with a role opposite Jeremy Renner in the Bourne spin-off The Bourne Legacy, which films this September. But she's also set to play Mila Kunis's mean older sister witch in Sam Raimi's Oz: The Great and Powerful. Here's to hoping it works out with her busy slate, which has her set to open at least six other films in the next two years. (That's a whole lotta Weisz, but who's complaining?) [Deadline]
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