Greeted with a lot of big laughs and extended applause at its first Cannes press screening last night, Joel and Ethan Coen's latest love letter to music "Inside Llewyn Davis" did not disappoint. (Our own Eric Kohn went so far as to say "it isn't the minor Coen Bros. movie it looks like.")
Read More »Long hours on the road, sleeping on sofas, eating very little, playing shows for little money; it's a wonder why anyone struggles to make it as a musician. But for Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) there really isn't any other option to playing music. "...And what, just exist?" he counters, when his sister...
Read More »A perhaps unexpected offering to kick off this fortnight of high-profile international, arthouse and independent filmmaking, Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" will nonetheless burst open the Cannes Film Festival later tonight like a giant glitter-and-feather-filled pinata. Which means that this morn...
Read More »If your audience needs to read up beforehand, your movie may be a little over-ambitious. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” however, which stands at sub-200 pages and with a tally of no more than seven principal characters, doesn’t present itself as an obvious adaptive head-scratcher. So a n...
Read More »The domestic trailer for "Shame" has arrived, and if you're a keen follower of this film, you'll realize this trailer is pretty much identical to the the U.K. version you've already seen. But the point is spreading the word for a controversial sexual drama that's been stamped with the dreaded NC-17 ...
Read More »It's hard to believe that just two years ago the world was waking up to Carey Mulligan. The actress seemed to come out of nowhere with her turn in Lone Scherfig's "An Education," and rather than try and go for big paydays in tentpole or franchise movies, Mulligan has wisely opted to work with filmmakers instead. Jim Sheridan ("Brothers"), Oliver Stone ("Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps"), Mark Romanek ("Never Let Me Go"), Nicolas Winding Refn ("Drive") and Steve McQueen ("Shame") now grace her filmography, with Baz Luhrmann being added this fall as she shoots "The Great Gatsby." And Mulligan isn't stopping there, as Variety report, she's addin...
Read More »And Nine More Things We Learned About 'Shame' From New York Film Festival ScreeningIt's no surprise considering how spectacularly good his feature debut "Hunger" was, but Steve McQueen's "Shame" has marched through Venice, Telluride and Toronto, winning more and more fans along the way. And while there's a few months yet to come, we're almost certain that it'll appear high up on a number of year-end lists of Playlist staffers come the end of 2011. Reteaming the British director with his "Hunger" star Michael Fassbender, along with "An Education" Oscar-nominee Carey Mulligan, it's an immaculately made, firmly controlled, no-holds-barred look a...
Read More »Says Director Ruben Fleischer Holds His Own Amongst the Massive Ensemble of 'Gangster Squad'
Read More »After months of build-up, moviegoers finally got a look at "Drive," the much-acclaimed crime thriller by Nicolas Winding Refn, this weekend. With a C- Cinemascore (whatever that's worth), it's clearly a divisive picture, but there's been enough passion spent on the film, here and elsewhere, to suggest that plenty of discerning cinephiles have fallen for it in the way that several Playlist staffers have in recent weeks. And if you were one of them, Refn might have been a new face for you; the director has been active for fifteen years now, but only really started to come to attention of U.S. film fans in the last few years (or arguably, months...
Read More »'Drive' Director Also Talks Action Flick 'Only God Forgives,' An Abandoned Heist Pic & An Albert Brooks-Penned ComedyIf you've read any kind of movie blog in the last six months you're likely to see that almost everyone is enamored with Nicolas Winding Refn's beautiful, thrilling crime picture "Drive," which will undoubtedly nestle near the top of many year-end lists (including ours), when the time comes. It might feel like you've been hearing about the film for years now, seeing as the reviews have been piling in since it bowed at Cannes way back in May, but the film finally hits theaters on Friday, and you'll be able to check out all the fu...
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