Daniel Craig, John Goodman & Hugh Bonneville Join George Clooney's 'The Monuments Men,' Bill Murray & Cate Blanchett Confirmed NEWS BY OLIVER LYTTELTON OCTOBER 29, 2012 11:24 AM (INDIEWIRE)

After a busy few years (six movies in three years, from "Up in the Air" to "The Descendants"), George Clooney's been taking things a little easier in 2012. That's not to say that he hasn't been busy: the actor wrapped Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity," and is a producer on Ben Affleck's "Argo," a role which is all but certain to see him pick up an Oscar nomination in a record-breaking sixth different category (having previously got nods in Actor, Supporting Actor, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay). But with the former being delayed from its original berth in November to an unknown date next year, 2012 marks the first calendar year since Clooney's ascension to stardom in the early 90s that the actor hasn't appeared in a film in theaters.

But Clooney's on the way back, with his fourth directorial effort "The Monuments Men," and he's bringing along pretty much everyone in Hollywood with him. The WW2 drama, penned by Clooney and writing/producing partner Grant Heslov, is set in the dying days of the war, as an international team of curators and art historians come together to salvage priceless works of art from the Nazi regime. Names like Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray and Jean Dujardin were kicked around as possibilities for the film, but now the cast has solidified, and it's an even more exciting selection than previously thought.

Deadline confirm that Clooney will star in the film, with Blanchett, Murray and Dujardin all confirmed to be participating, while Daniel Craig, riding high with the international success of "Skyfall," is the highest-profile new name on board. Also joining them are "Argo" man John Goodman, "Downton Abbey"'s Earl of Grantham, Hugh Bonneville, and veteran character actor Bob Balaban. That's a pretty badass cast right there.

READ MORE: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/daniel-craig-john-goodman-hugh-bonneville-join-george-clooneys-the-monuments-men-bill-murray-cate-blanchett-confirmed-20121029

Anna Karenina: Toronto Film Festival: 10 films with Oscar dreams by Dave Karger (EW.COM)

As it has been for most of the last dozen or years, the Toronto International Film Festival was a major Academy Awards feeder last year: Three of the nine eventual Best Picture nominees (The Artist, The Descendants, and Moneyball) played there, while Beginners, which won Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Plummer, premiered at the festival in 2010. Now that much of this year’s lineup has been announced, here are the 10 movies I’ll have my eye on when I head up north in September.

Anna Karenina

The first two times Joe Wright and Keira Knightley collaborated, it resulted in a nomination for either Best Picture (Atonement) or Best Actress (Pride and Prejudice). Adapting Tolstoy’s classic novel with the help of Oscar-winning screenwriter Tom Stoppard seems Academy-friendly to the max.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPGLRO3fZnQ&feature=player_embedded#!


READ THE REST OF THE LIST OF TOP CONTENDERS GOING TO TORONTO:
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/07/24/toronto-film-festival-oscar-race/

Ewan McGregor, Jean Paul Gaultier tapped for Cannes jury French film fest jury includes actors, filmmakers and cinephile fashion designer CBC News Posted: Apr 26, 2012 11:41 AM ET Last Updated: Apr 26, 2012 11:40 AM ET (CBS NEWS)

Actor Ewan McGregor, filmmaker Alexander Payne and fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier will help pick the winner of the Cannes Film Festival's top prize.

 The trio will join Italian filmmaker and jury chair Nanni Moretti on the feature film jury that will choose the winner of the festival's Palme d'Or from this year's 22 competing entries.

 Both McGregor and Payne are coming off recent film successes: the Scottish actor for his touching performance in the romantic comedy and father-son drama Beginners and the American director for his Oscar-winning family drama The Descendants.


READ MORE:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/04/26/cannes-jury-feature-film-mcgregor-gaultier.html

Michael Fassbender: Another award nomination for Fassbender (RTE TEN)

Sunday 15 January 2012

Michael Fassbender is among the nominees for the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television's inaugural International Awards for his performance in Shame.

 

 

Fassbender - Among the nominees for the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television's inaugural International Awards for his performance in Shame

Related Articles

• Fassbender wins Online Critics award
• Fassbender honoured by LA critics
• Fassbender wins at indie awards
• Fassbender's eyed for role of Noah
• Fassbender privileged by opportunities
• Shame
• The Artist
• The Ides of March
• Moneyball

The International Awards feature five categories: Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress.

Fassbender is shortlisted alongside George Clooney (The Descendants), Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar), Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Ryan Gosling (The Ides of March) and Brad Pitt (Moneyball).
The winners will be announced in Los Angeles on January 27.



http://www.rte.ie/ten/2012/0115/fassbenderm.html

Top 10 lead actor performances of 2011 (New Jersey Newsroom)

Saturday, 31 December 2011 00:47

BY JOHN SOLTES

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

MOVIE REVIEW

A common thread among the best cinematic performances of 2011 is that the most effective roles are much smaller in scope than previous years. Many of the characters who have lingered in our collective minds are fathers and mothers trying to hold their families together. They are facing the death of their usual selves and need to change with the times, or else feel the uneasy reality of failure.

1. Vera Farmiga, "Higher Ground"
One of the most quietly moving performances in years comes thanks to Vera Farmiga, who not only stars in “Higher Ground,” but also directed the film. Playing Corinne, a woman with a good heart and strong religious beliefs, Farmiga is able to put a cinematic face on a smart, engaging Christian. The performance is so refreshing because it's the opposite of cliche. Corinne is not a zealot or fundamentalist; she's merely a mother and wife, struggling with questions she yearns to answer. Farmiga offers an ambitiously understated performance in a film that investigates what happens when one feels the pangs of dissatisfaction.

2. George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Alexander Payne, director of 'About Schmidt' and “Sideways,” has once again fascinated moviegoers with a stunning portraiture of a broken man trying to hold it all together. His clay is the always-impressive George Clooney, an actor who, like a good wine, seems to age well. Playing Matt King, a wealthy lawyer grappling with the pending death of his estranged wife, Clooney is able to convey a panoply of emotions as he works his way through the unbearable grief process. Much like Brad Pitt's role in 'The Tree of Life,' Clooney is able to create a respectable father figure who carefully tip-toes through the volatile mines of parenthood. As his wife withers in front of him, he realizes his need to take the reins.

3. Viola Davis, “The Help”
“The Help” is an effective cinematic adaptation that occasionally can feel too much like the usual "best-seller" fare that hits movie theaters. Surely, the film would not be as popular or noteworthy if Viola Davis were not involved. As Aibileen Clark, a black maid working in Jackson, Miss., the talented actress is able to ground the film in historical reality. She holds the weight of her son's death and her community's discrimination on her shoulders. Watching her stomach the racism around her and somehow hold her head up high is a marvel to behold. In a year when much-heralded impersonations are getting all the ink (Michelle Williams in “My Week with Marilyn” and Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”), it's Davis' turn in “The Help” that leaves a lasting impression.















4. Brendan Gleeson, “The Guard”
I've seen Brendan Gleeson in many bad films, but I've never seen a bad Brendan Gleeson performance. In “The Guard,” a small Irish film from John Michael McDonagh, Gleeson plays Sgt. Gerry Boyle, an offensive policeman with a dirty mouth and penchant for enjoying hookers on his days off. He's far from the model of humanity, but Gleeson smartly plays him with no pretense or judgment. This makes the character a wonderful complexity of emotions. At one minute, Boyle could be insulting a black FBI agent (Don Cheadle) and in another minute, he's caring for his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan). The fact that he can do both with a straight face shows a commitment to the character.

5. Kirsten Dunst, “Melancholia”
Despite the inherent controversy over director Lars Von Trier's work, the filmmaker knows how to engage audiences with thoughtful, provocative movies. His latest is 'Melancholia,' and it features a believable, often heartbreaking performance from Kristen Dunst. Living up to its title, the movie depicts the final hours before the end of the world. The only way we as an audience are allowed to comprehend the doom and gloom is through the tortured eyes of Justine (Dunst), a newly wed bride who somehow can identify with the looming destruction. It's a complicated performance that fits perfectly in a complicated film.

6. Dominic Cooper, “The Devil's Double”
Although “The Devil's Double” came and went from movie theaters without much fanfare, Dominic Cooper's powerhouse performances deserve recognition. He not only plays Uday Hussein, Saddam's sadistic son, but also Latif Yahia, Uday's body double. They may look similar (except for buck teeth), but these men are polar opposites. Cooper is given the unenviable task of not only bringing both to life, but also having them interact with each other and still prove believable. He pulls it off, and the results are scarily effectual.

7. Brad Pitt, “The Tree of Life”
Brad Pitt has had a banner year, and although his performance in “Moneyball” will likely nab him an Oscar nomination, it's his role in Terrence Malick's “The Tree of Life” that deserves recognition. As a strong, sometimes fierce father, Pitt embodies a loving sternness. The man looks to his sons as his greatest legacy, and he's determined to make them respectful, successful and presentable.

8. Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy”
Juliette Binoche anchors much of Abbas Kiarostami's exquisite new film. The talented French actress, who won an Academy Award for 'The English Patient,' always keeps the audience guessing throughout the romantic movie. We never come to know whether Elle (Binoche) and James (William Shimell) are falling in love, have fallen in love already or what exactly is going on. It's to Binoche's credit that we enjoy the guessing game so much.

9. Demian Bichir, “A Better Life”
Demian Bichir turns in a powerful performance as an illegal immigrant faced with the possibility of deportation. He works long hours cutting the lawns of the posh Los Angeles crowd, while at night he watches over his son, trying to keep him out of the local gang activity. Much like Pitt in 'The Tree of Life' and Clooney in “The Descendants,” Bichir plays a father figure with the world stacked against him. One always knows a performance resonates when it eclipses the rest of the film.

10. Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
“The Artist” has become a critical darling, mostly because of its courage to tell an entire story with no words and in black and white. This leaves the audience with the facial emotions of the talented cast, and there is probably no better actor suited for the challenge than Jean Dujardin. As George Valentin, a fading film star unwilling to change with the times, the actor cleverly pays homage to the silent movies of the early 20th century and simultaneously creates a real man with real emotions. It's a deceptively layered performance.

John Soltes is an award-winning freelance journalist based in New Jersey. He currently serves as publisher of Hollywood Soapbox (www.HollywoodSoapbox.com). E-mail him at john.soltes@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

ALSO BY JOHN SOLTES

'El Sicario' movie review, trailer: A haunting portrait of a cold-blooded killer
'The Adventures of Tintin' movie review, trailer: Spielberg finds his inner boy
'Carnage' movie review, trailer: Polanski's take loses some bite
'A Dangerous Method' movie review, trailer: Cronenberg explores the human mind
'The Muppets' movie review, trailer: Kermit and friends are back
'Hugo' movie review, trailer: Wondrous entertainment

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/movies/top-10-lead-actor-performances-of-2011/page-2

The New Yorker: The Best Films of 2011

December 5, 2011

The Best Films of 2011

Posted by David Denby

“Hugo”—In Martin Scorsese’s wondrous 3-D masterpiece, you feel like you’re inside a giant box with the entire history of the cinema playing on the walls. The movie is intricate, touching, a reverent summing up of the past of movies, and a triumphant, heart-swelling surge into the future.

“The Tree of Life”—Yes, I know, Terrence Malick’s movie is unbearably high-minded and humorless. But still! There are sequences that rival the greatest things ever done in movies, especially the long family episodes with Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, and the little boys, in which the camera floats around the characters, and all of eternity is summoned in the minutest motions of love and rage. Brad Pitt gives an amazing performance; he’s a shoo-in for the Oscar.

“Margin Call”—Or, as Werner Herzog might put it, Der Sheisse fliegen in der Whirligig, i.e., the bottom falls out of the mortgage-backed derivatives market. J. C. Chandor’s first feature film is sparely but eloquently written and perfectly played by a large cast whose attitudes towards one another, in the roles of financial executives, mutate through a long day from wary collegiality to outright hatred or desperate loyalty. The movie has a keen, bitter sense of the sudden breakdown of preposterous illusions. Great performances by Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, and even Demi Moore.

“Certified Copy”—In Abbas Kiarostami’s puzzling fable, a British art historian (William Shimmel) and a French gallery owner (Juliette Binoche) meet, seemingly for the first time, in Arezzo, and take off for a day of sight-seeing in the village of Lucignano. For their own amusement, they play at being married. Or are they really married? In the end, we realize that both stories are true; that both have been woven together in a double-sided fiction abut the varieties of intimacy. Beautifully shot in Lucignano, with a hand-held camera that smoothly recedes as the two, walking together, quarrel and flirt in the handsome stone village.

“A Separation”—This somber but spirited look at the concentrics spreading out from the break-up of an attractive and intelligent couple—its effect on elders, servants, children—holds you from first to last. An Iranian film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi.

“Contagion”—A businesslike, unexaggerated vision of catastrophe. Steven Soderbergh’s depiction of a new toxic virus spreading, well, virally, is frightening in its sober-minded attention to specifics. Some people wanted more filmmaking excitement, but the plainness and sureness of the movie are its greatest virtues.

“The Descendants”—Nothing could be more suggestive of the screwed-up nature of Hollywood’s current business arrangements than the seven-year wait for a new movie from Alexander Payne (“Sideways”). In this lovely film, the director takes his time, pausing for observation, reflection, puzzlement, but there are two clear, intersecting story-lines: The cluelessness of a father (George Clooney) who has to take care, for the first time in his life, of his two daughters; and the debate within a large family over what to do with a large hunk of virgin property on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The movie asks: Who shall inherit Hawaii?

“J. Edgar”—Clint Eastwood does his best to inject some soul into the creaky biopic form in this epic portrait of the F.B.I. director as a mother-dominated man whose furious sexual self-suppression erupts into a broadly authoritarian drive. By casting Leonardo DiCaprio as the young Hoover, the movie traces how an attractive young man thickens with power and age. Armie Hammer is suavely appealing as Hoover’s lifetime inamorata Clyde Tolson.

“Source Code”—Duncan Jones’s crackerjack time-travel thriller injects Jake Gyllenhaal into a speeding train booby-trapped with bombs. The entire thing is wild fantasy, of course, but the separate eight-minute segments of Gyllenhaal looking for the bombs are shot in real time, and the suspense is terrific.

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”—The best use of digital in a big commercial movie this year. The apes, injected with DNA intended to prevent Alzheimer’s, become super intelligent, and develop humanish traits like empathy. But then their inner apeness comes out, and they climb and jump all over San Francisco. Enormous fun. Directed by Rupert Wyatt.

Illustration by Jim Stoten.
Photograph by Merie Wallace/Fox Searchlight.

THE NEW YORKER
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2011/12/denby-the-best-films-of-2011.html#ixzz1fhKtU0KY

The Immortals now at $170 million worldwide - Weekend Box Office Wrap Up: December 4th, 2011

Dec 4, 2011 by Niall Browne

Here’s our box office report for the weekend of December 2, 2011 featuring the performances of holdover films ‘Breaking Dawn-Part 1′, ‘The Muppets’ and ‘Hugo’ – as well as updates on the rest of the box office top ten.

This week:

Twilight‘s Breaking Dawn tops the box office-again; The Muppets score the runner-up spot and Hugo fails to light up the chart on its second week of release.

Watch The Trailer For

Scorsese's "Hugo" On The Official Site. In 3D This November

HugoMovie.com

No major releases were unleashed by studios over the weekend, meaning that movie-goers had to make do with Thanksgiving leftovers. This meant that Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1 ruled the roost for the third week in a row. The vampire romance banked $16.9 million over the weekend and upped its cume to a powerful $247.3 million. The Bill Condon directed film has now brought in over $500 globally – a great number, especially after only three weeks on release, and one that will continue to climb.

The Muppets held onto the number two spot, bringing in $11.2 million worth of green. The much loved characters dipped around 62% from last weekend giving them a total of $56.1 million – about $10 million more than the film’s production cost.

Hugo was third, after scoring another $7.6 million. The Martin Scorsese picture has now grossed $25.2 million, a far cry from its reported $150 million budget. Time will tell if it was a solid bet by Paramount.

Arthur Christmas grabbed fourth place, grossing $7.3 million over the weekend, for a $25 million total cume. It has about three more weeks to make money and then this Christmas themed ‘toon will melt like the winter snow.

Happy Feet 2 continues to underperform. The animated sequel brought in $6 million for $51.7 million total. Maybe they should re-title it Unhappy Feet for the DVD release.

Adam Sandler’s Jack & Jill laughed up another $5.5 million, upping its cume to $64.3 million. A so-so number for Sandler, whose movies routinely gross $100 million.




George Clooney starrer The Descendants was in seventh place after grossing an additional $5.2 million. The Alexander Payne directed film has a total gross currently standing at a smidgen over $18 million. These are good numbers when you consider that the film is playing in less than 600 theaters.

Sword and sandal pic Immortals sliced up another $4.3 million, bringing its total to $75.5 million – the same number as its production budget. The Henry Cavill film has now banked over $170 million worldwide.

Tower Heist swiped another $4.1 million over the last three days upping its cumulative gross to $70 million. This is a solid number, but one that should have been much, much higher.

Puss in Boots rounded out the top ten. The Antonio Banderas voiced animated film grossed an additional $3 million, giving it a total of $139.5 million, a great number considering that it had a lacklustre debut. The ‘toon had a production budget of $130 million, but it has now grossed over $200 million worldwide.

That’s it for now. See you at the movies.

Follow me on twitter @CorduroyBrowne

Source: Box Office Mojo

Screen Rant