Javier Bardem booms out, "You shall love (pause) whether you like it or not." Bardem is seen dressed as a priest in 'To The Wonder,' the latest film by Terrence Malick, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival. The trailer opens with a couple walking across what looks like a bridge over the Seine in Paris who then head to what looks like the tidal island Mont Saint-Michel before heading back to more suburban locales and then pastoral expanses.
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Your guess is as good as mine as to what the heck's going on in new set photos from Terrence Malick's latest picture, in which Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender appear to be getting down to lip-locking in a field... and are interrupted by a green lizard man with "FREAK" tattoed across his chest. What's Terry up to down in Austin?
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The scene outside East Hampton's usually civilized Guild Hall was almost as frenzied as a mosh pit on Saturday night when an overflow crowd turned up to watch Alec Baldwin interview fellow leading man Richard Gere. The spirited conversation, which focused mostly on Gere's pre-Pretty Woman career, was a precursor to the Arbitrage actor receiving the Hamptons International Film Festival's 2012 Golden Starfish Award for Lifetime Achievement in Acting. more »
First, Abe Lincoln was a vampire hunter. Now he sounds like he might have been a very early member of the Green Lantern Corps. The 16th president's tough formative years will be explored in The Green Blade Also Rises, which will mark the directorial debut of Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life) protege A.J. Edwards who also wrote the screenplay. Malick will produce the film, which despite its sci-fi-sounding title, will depict the hardships that molded young Abe into the man who became one of America's most influential presidents.
Lincoln has yet to be cast, but the filmmakers announced on Friday that Wes Bentley (The Hunger Games) will play the president's first teacher, and Brit Marling (Another Earth) will play Nancy, Lincoln's biological mother. Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) and Jason Clarke (Public Enemies) are also on board as Lincoln's step-mother and father. Edwards got his start as an editorial intern on Malick's The New World and served as the editor on his most recent film To The Wonder.
With just under 300 features, the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival is a yearly behemoth that regularly churns out a number of films that will head to U.S. theaters and vie for the year-end awards race. In fact, Toronto is considered a launch pad for the long, long awards season that will culminate in the Oscar ceremony February 24th. Some recent Oscar winners that played TIFF before heading out to audiences in North America include The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire. Over the next several days, ML will preview some of the titles we believe will be catching attention either with audiences, the awards race (or of course both).
The ten titles that follow range from returning auteurs like Terrence Malick and Noah Baumbach to Toronto veterans that have managed to surprise audiences with their unique vision and will likely do so again. And there are some newcomers we just found interesting. This week, ML will profile some of the top "high profile" titles we'll be watching closely. Docs, Midnight/Genre and Foreign-Language titles will follow this week. Take a look and by all means, add your opinions.
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The previously untitled, Ben Affleck/Rachel McAdams-starring project due later this year has also received an R rating for "some sexuality and nudity." Ugh. This calls for a petition! Meanwhile the film still awaits an official release date; stay tuned here for details as events warrant. [CARA via Film Stage]
Forty-eight hours to Oscar. Gut-check time — or maybe make that "gut-instinct check" time, a moment to break away from the meticulous zeitgeist-combing science of Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics and make a few choices for myself. Not that they'll be so different, but if you can't go with a hunch where 5,765 fickle, insular industry minds are concerned, then what can you go with? We can't all be be Otis the Oscar Cat, you know. Anyway, let's make this quick:
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The Academy Awards are not a contest, the humble nominees might demur, taking the high road through the gory scrum that is awards season. But do you really think, say, Glenn Close wouldn’t cut a bitch for an Oscar? Alas, the odds are against her, literally; online books have her at as much as 100:1 odds to win her first statuette for Albert Nobbs. Take a peek at how the internet’s enterprising bookies have handicapped the 84th Academy Award nominees and adjust your bets accordingly.
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After spending the last year with her Oscar and her new baby, Natalie Portman is set to return to acting with a busy year with not one, but two Terrence Malick films. The Black Swan star will join Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett to film Knight of Cups this summer, with all three reuniting in the fall to film Malick's Lawless with Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and Haley Bennett. Plot details for both films have been kept under wraps, so tee off with your thoughts on the Portman addition and the unusual double film casting move below. [Deadline]
As you may have heard or read, the 2012 Academy Award nominations have stirred strong reactions in certain pockets of the Oscar snubculture. And you just know that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close filmmaker Stephen Daldry -- a first-time non-nominee for Best Director -- is seething somewhere out there: "But at least two of those guys won't even show up!" Fair enough! Or is it?
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When Lars von Trier's latest masterpiece Melancholia last had any real time in the awards spotlight, Kirsten Dunst was accepting the Best Actress hardware at Cannes. News came over the weekend that their drought is over: The National Society of Film Critics voted Melancholia its Best Picture of 2011, with Dunst again earning Best Actress for her role as a depressed bride coming to grips with the end of the world. Other honorees included Terrence Malick, Brad Pitt, Albert Brooks and Jessica Chastain; read on for the full list of winners, runners-up and voting totals.
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The annual Cahiers du Cinema Top 10 of 2011 list has been revealed, naming works by the likes of Terrence Malick, Lars von Trier, Jerzy Skolimowsky, and Manoel de Oliveira. Also in the winners' circle? J.J. Abrams! See the full eclectic list after the jump, not to mention the crazy ties in votes that make this early Top 10 a doozy to wrap your mind around...
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When Paramount gave a post-Days of Heaven Terrence Malick $1 million, carte blanche, to make his next film, he began developing a highly ambitious project about the creation of life and the cosmos entitled Qasida (or, simply, Q). Of course, the studio balked at the abstract Malick-ness of it all, the film stalled, and the director took the next two decades off from filmmaking. But! Now you can read Malick's own Q script notes, circa 1979, and envision how his globe-trotting Q eventually morphed into this year's Tree of Life.
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A tweet from the official Fox Searchlight Twitter account today brought to mind a surprising new target demographic for Terrence Malick's Cannes-winning Tree of Life in the Los Angeles area: "LA: Are you aware Arclight Hollywood showtimes for TREE OF LIFE include a 4:20 screening daily?" Just remember, weed and Tree of Life go together better than LSD and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Right, 2001 acid-freakout guy?
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