Two very different posters emerged for November's release of the 23rd James Bond installment, Skyfall. In one, current Bond incarnation Daniel Craig looks the upright perfectly dressed 007. Sure he has a gun, but he holds it more like a martini as he stands in perfect posture with the Union Jack and what appears to be the City of London in the background. The second one ditches the British flag for a more casual James Bond hitting the dirt in action (with blazer), with a side view of Craig pointing his pistol at an unseen assailant with large 007 emblazoned in the background.
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In Monday's round-up of news briefs, a quick look at weekend pick ups at the Toronto International Film Festival including The Place Beyond the Pines, Aftershock, Great Expectations and more that will head to a theater (hopefully) near you. Also Beasts Of The Southern Wild takes a top prize at the Deauville Film Festival in France.
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James Bond added another leading lady under his belt after he teamed up with none other than Queen Elizabeth II in a sketch for the opening night of the Olympics in London (with what looked like Her Majesty jumping out of a plane with the eternal superstar agent). Most certainly not quite how it happened, but nevertheless a significant royal boost for 007 ahead of his next adventure. The new international trailer of Skyfall promises more action and intrigue - and of course he's once again ready for the fight, tux in tow.
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Remember that 1998 movie adaptation of the old British TV show The Avengers, starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman? Me neither, but set artist Stephen Morahan does — if only because he was reminded after working on this week's Marvel blockbuster of the same name: "[I]t looks a bit odd on your resume. So, I made this before, now it's something completely different. And when you talk about it, people don't even know about the other film. it didn't do very well. I mean, that's another big difference, too. The original Avengers was a big flop. It bombed." [Huffington Post]
The 10 years that we are told at the beginning of Wrath of the Titans have passed since Perseus (Sam Worthington) defeated the Kraken may not seem like long enough, especially when you consider that it’s only been two since the Clash of the Titans remake was released, Kraken-like, on an unsuspecting populace. It was sufficient time, anyway, for Worthington to grow out his hair, so that in Wrath of the Titans he sports a soft cap of curls to go with his peaceful life among the humans. He’s lost a wife but gained a son and another pretext to propel a franchise whose fate was sealed once Avatar’s numbers started rolling in. That it was going to happen was certain; how it happened was of secondary concern.
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If you're both a movie fan and a consummate statistician, it's easy to love and appreciate the Oscars for shoehorning the majority of film history into a manageable grading rubric. I'm an Oscar apologist myself, and I still have one bone to pick with the Academy -- and all award-spewing organizations: the unnecessary reliance on gender-based categories. Is it not more thrilling to pit all actors against each other? Is there such an objective difference between Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock? Meryl Streep and Robert Downey Jr.? "Actor" is a gender-neutral term, and I think we'd all better off -- and better entertained -- without the meaningless siphoning. Thus, I'm stacking up the best performances of 2011 without categorical regard for gender or role size. It's a winner-take-all affair, and this winner definitely wants it all. Here's my top 10:
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Ralph Fiennes, honored at the BFI London Film Festival awards for his directorial debut -- the Shakespeare adaptation Coriolanus -- does not think in sound bites of 140 words or less. 'We're in a world of truncated sentences, soundbites and Twitter... [Language] is being eroded -- it's changing. Our expressiveness and our ease with some words is being diluted so that the sentence with more than one clause is a problem for us, and the word of more than two syllables is a problem for us." So hey, kids -- go see Coriolanus next January and expand your (five syllables!) vo-ca-bu-la-ry! [Daily Mail]
Yes, I know. You Harry Potterites well know what Horcruxes are -- the magical vessels that can house a fragment of a wizard or witch's soul -- but the rest of us Muggles might need a little refresher going into July's franchise-ender Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. Luckily, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort himself!) and others have put together a handy featurette packed with footage to explain.
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Another day, another fatalistic Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II character poster. Here, it all ends for Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), which is a shame because for the first time in this series ol' Trix is looking fairly H-O-T. Washed hair and everything, just in time for the big hurrah! Hit the jump for the full image.
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