By Jason Apuzzo. The first trailer is now out for Sacha Baron Cohen’s forthcoming comedy, The Dictator, and for the most part I like it. Cohen has obviously thrown political correctness out the window, and at first glance it looks like this film could be hilarious. Take a look, and judge for yourself …
Posted on December 14th, 2011 at 12:38pm.
By Jason Apuzzo. We like to periodically put a spotlight on short films here at Libertas, and this recent short film above called “The Arab Spring” caught my eye over at Vimeo. The film is essentially an abstract representation of the historic events of the Arab Spring, and is quite polished in terms of its graphic design and sound. Take a look. We wish filmmaker Raoul Marks the best with it.
[UPDATE: The filmmaker has made the decision to remove the film from Vimeo. See the comments from filmmaker Raoul Marks in the comments section below.]
[UPDATE #2: The film is now back up, with a minor alteration.]
Posted on November 30th, 2011 at 11:40am.
By Jason Apuzzo. Since we first debuted Terror Watch as a series here at Libertas back on the weekend of September 11th, there have been a torrent of announcements regarding War on Terror-themed projects in Hollywood and in the indie film world – confirming that we have a major, bona fide trend in play here. The floodgates are obviously now open, and the War on Terror – interpreted as a traditional American fight for freedom – has suddenly become one of the hottest subjects in Hollywood.
What’s causing this trend? I have my theories, which are in order: 1) the weakening grip of the Baby Boomers on Hollywood; 2) the successful bin Laden raid; 3) Obama in the White House; 4) the astonishing success of video games like Call of Duty and Battlefield.
But actually I don’t particularly care what’s causing it any longer. All I know is that it’s about damn time.
• Among the big new projects announced recently, two really caught my eye: the Navy SEAL drama Rubicon, and the CGI Iraq War thriller Thunder Run. Rubicon will be written, directed and produced by Christopher McQuarrie – and the Rubicon story will serve as a platform for a movie, graphic novel and a videogame. Rubicon is set in Afghanistan and features the Navy SEALs as the heroes and the Taliban the villains. Fabulous! We’ve only been waiting for this sort of thing for what – 10 years? McQuarrie’s brother actually commanded a SEAL team, and the film will otherwise be co-produced with founding SEAL Team Six member Dan Capel.
As an added bonus: Rubicon will be a retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, with the Navy SEALs taking the place of the samurai.
So am I looking forward to this project? Hell yes. The Seven Samurai connection in particular gives the storyline a kind of mythic overtone, elevating it above conventional action-thriller fare. Cineastes may recall, incidentally, that director John Sturges’ classic Western The Magnificent Seven had similar origins in Kurosawa’s film. Bravo to McQuarrie and team for having the ambition to try this, and we’ll root for this project getting fully off the ground in days ahead.
As for Thunder Run, that appears to be an even more unusual project – essentially a 3D CGI depiction of the heroic capture of Baghdad by American forces in April 2003. The film is based on the novel Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad, and Black Hawk Down screenwriters Robert Port and Ken Nolan are writing the adaptation. Amazingly, the film already has Gerard Butler, Sam Worthington and Matthew McConaughey attached, along with director Simon West (Con Air, Tomb Raider). In other words, this is a very hot property – and given the gigantic debut of Call of Duty this past week, expectations for this film could be absolutely off the charts. Also: Thunder Run already has a promo poster out. [Btw, I’m wondering if Sam Worthington is clearing all this stuff with James Cameron?]
As if that’s not enough, Brad Thor’s novel Takedown is now in development at Warner Brothers. Takedown deals with a butt-kicking former Navy SEAL Team 6 member who takes on an Al Qaeda plot to strike New York; think Jack Bauer on steroids
In other new projects: Michelle Monaghan (Machine Gun Preacher) will be playing an Afghanistan War vet in the indie drama Fort Bliss; Tom Hanks has been offered the lead in Patriot Down, about a U.S. President on the run after Air Force One gets shot down over Pakistan; Producer Frank Marshall (the Indiana Jones & Bourne films) will now be adapting some of Jeffrey Archer’s novels; Oliver Hirschbiegel will soon be directing Eye in the Sky about drone strikes; and Universal may be picking up a new comic book project called War Heroes – although that one looks vaguely annoying.
• The Devil’s Double, which features an electrifying performance by Dominic Cooper in the dual role of Uday Hussein and his body double Latif Yahia, hits Blu-ray/DVD on November 22nd. If this film didn’t hit your area or you haven’t had the chance yet to check it out yet, this week will be your big chance. (Read Joe Bendel’s glowing review of the film from LFM’s coverage of Sundance.) Govindini and I were very impressed with the film and can’t recommend it enough.
• The big news, which came out just yesterday, is that the untitled Sony-Kathryn Bigelow ‘hunt for bin Laden’ movie has a new official release date of December 19th, 2012. Also: the movie apparently has its star, Jason Clarke (I’m not familiar with him), with prominent people like Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises), Guy Pearce, Idris Elba (Thor) and Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) circling other roles.
The initial rap against this film – in part – was that Sony had selected an October 2012 release date to capitalize on next year’s election and bolster Obama’s flagging re-election hopes. As I expressed in my initial Terror Watch, though, it didn’t seem very likely to me that Bigelow would even be able to make that date – and sure enough the movie has now been pushed off to mid-December, probably as late as Sony could go without dropping the film into January, a no-no for any film with award-season ambitions.
So what will the film be like? We simply don’t know yet. An interesting footnote, however: a competing Navy SEAL-bin Laden movie is already in the works called Code Name Geronimo, and yet another SEAL Team 6 project is currently being shopped around based on the new book SEAL Target Geronimo. Expect more of this sort of thing in the future. Someone might want to consider making a film, for example, called SEAL Team 6 Kills Code Name Geronimo bin Laden. Just a thought. Continue reading Terror Watch: Sony’s Bin Laden Movie Gets a Release Date + Updates on Rubicon, Thunder Run, Call of Duty & More!
By Jason Apuzzo. It appears that we may have a new film movement afoot, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests: “Occupy Cinema.” For the moment this movement seems to be situated around just a few sites: Cine Foundation International, Occupy Cinema and Cinemas In Solidarity. However, I sense a trend growing – a filmic uprising that may change the cinema as we know it.
Or not.
I recently watched two of the film offerings at Cine Foundation International, and decided to embed their latest – a short film titled “#Occupy Cinema Untitled 1” – above, for LFM readers’ consideration. Frankly, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the film, so I decided to email my old colleague, Professor Jacques de Molay, Professor of Cinema & Neurosemiotics at the University of Northern California. I was very eager to seek out Jacques’ opinion about the film – as he’s always had a better feel for radical, transgressive cinema than I do.
As regular Libertas readers know, Jacques is a widely recognized Marxist intellectual, and last appeared on our site here to provide a guest review of Piranha 3D, which he liked very much – interpreting the film as a subversive parable on ‘consumerism.’ As Jacques put it at the time, reviewing Piranha: “after the Wall Street collapse, commerce in today’s capitalist society can only end in bloody apocalypse – a farrago of bikini tops, chewed limbs … and shattered ideals.”
With this in mind, I asked Jacques what he thought of the film above. He emailed me this reply, from his vacation home in St. Bart’s: Continue reading Friday Special: LFM Guest Review of “#Occupy Cinema Untitled 1”
By Jason Apuzzo. A new trailer for Act of Valor is now out. Check it out above. Featuring active-duty Navy SEALs in action, Act of Valor opens nationwide on February 17th.
Posted on November 15th, 2011 at 12:26pm.
By Jason Apuzzo. While we’re on the subject of major figures of the Cold War era (see the J. Edgar review below), a new trailer has just arrived for The Iron Lady, about Margaret Thatcher.
So will this be the hit job many people are fearing, or something more complex and true-to-life? Judge for yourself.
Posted on November 14th, 2011 at 11:26am.