Awards Season Gets a Summer Start With Strong Contenders Like ‘War For the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘The Big Sick’
This summer several movies are moving along on their road to the Oscars, while others are falling away.
Archives | Ethan Hawke
‘The Magnificent Seven’ Is A Fun And Surprisingly Fresh Western About Trump’s America — TIFF Review
Great chemistry and a subtle political undercurrent make Antoine Fuqua’s remake of a remake feel like something new.
Telluride Review: ‘Maudie’ Is A Paint By Numbers Love Story
Sally Hawkins’ charming lead performance can’t save this true love story from feeling as naïve as its namesake.
Maudie
The true story of Maud Lewis, who overcame the physical challenge of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis to become one of Canada’s premier folk artists.
The Magnificent Seven
Seven gun men in the old west gradually come together to help a poor village against savage thieves.
Review: Ti West’s ‘In A Valley Of Violence’ Is A Western ‘John Wick,’ But Mostly Shoots Blanks
Horror maestro Ti West pairs Ethan Hawke with an adorable canine sidekick, but he can’t teach an old genre new tricks.
The Woman in the Fifth
American writer Tom Ricks comes to Paris desperate to put his life together again and win back the love of his estranged wife and daughter. When things don’t go according to plan, he ends up in a shady hotel in the suburbs, having to work as a night guard to make ends meet. Then Margit, a beautiful, mysterious stranger walks into his life and things start looking up. Their passionate and intense relationship triggers a string of inexplicable events… as if an obscure power is taking control of his life. [Synopsis courtesy of TIFF]
Daybreakers
Fresh off the success of their inventive take on the zombie genre, Undead masterminds Michael and Peter Spierig direct Ethan Hawke in an ambitious tale of a futuristic Earth populated entirely by vampires, and the efforts made by the creatures to ensure that their food supply doesn’t run out as humankind is faced with extinction. The year is 2017, and a vampire plague has turned most of the planet’s human population into bloodsucking ghouls. As the population of mortals fast begins to dwindle, a resourceful team of vampires sets out to capture and farm every remaining human while simultaneously researching a consumable blood substitute. Just when all hope seems lost, a secret is discovered that may provide the key o saving the human race. [Synopsis courtesy of Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide]
Sinister (2012)
Found footage helps a true-crime novelist realize how and why a family was murdered in his new home, though his discoveries put his entire family in the path of a supernatural entity.
Chelsea on the Rocks
Since 1883 The Chelsea Hotel has been a home to artists great and small, from icons such as Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Tennessee Williams, Charles Bukowski, Andy Warhol, and Mark Twain, to assorted aspirants, junkies, prostitutes, and hermits. But new management has begun evicting boho tenants in favor of a more upscale crowd, prompting long-time resident – and consummate New Yorker – Ferrara to capture the ragged splendor of the place before its unique spirit is lost forever. Trolling the low-lit halls, visiting the hotel’s cast of memorable characters and raconteurs, and hanging out in the gallery-like lobby strewn with tenants’ paintings, “Chelsea on the Rocks” is shot through with an infectious brio, gallows humor and a hard-knock warmth to match its uniquely beloved subject. As yet another of New York’s cultural landmarks threatens to effectively vanish for the sake of a bland corporate status quo, Ferrara passionately shows how it’s often the misfit structures – and dwellers – that possess a city’s soul.
Brooklyn’s Finest
Tango is an undercover officer on a narcotics detail that forces him to choose between duty and friendship. Having been to hell and back, he wants out, but the powers that be won’t let him quit. Family-man Sal is a detective tempted by greed and corruption. He can barely make ends meet, and now his wife has an illness that threatens the life of their unborn twins. Eddie is nearing retirement age and has long since lost his dedication to his job as a cop. He wakes up every morning trying to come up with a reason to go on living…and he can’t think of one. Fate brings the three men to the same Brooklyn housing project as each takes the law into his own hands. [Synopsis courtesy of Sundance Film Festival]
New York, I Love You
New York, I Love You (a rendition of the French movie Paris, je t’aime) is a 2009 romance film starring Bradley Cooper, Shia LaBeouf, Natalie Portman, Anton Yelchin, Hayden Christensen, Orlando Bloom, Irrfan Khan, Rachel Bilson, Chris Cooper, Andy García, Christina Ricci, Uğur Yücel, Robin Wright Penn, Julie Christie, Maggie Q, Ethan Hawke and James Caan.New York, I Love You is a collective work of eleven short films. It is an anthology film joining several love stories set in one of the most loved cities of the world, New York where Ten vignettes in New York City: a pickpocket meets his match; a young Hasidic woman, on the eve of her marriage, reveals herself to an Indian businessman; a writer tries a pick-up line; an artist seeks a model; a composer needs to read; two women connect; a man takes a child to Central Park; lovers meet; a couple takes a walk on their anniversary; a kid goes to the prom with a girl in a wheelchair; a retired singer contemplates suicide.
