The Playlist

The obsessives' guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, movie music, soundtracks, DVDs and more.

Interviews

First Look At Oscar Nominee Philip Seymour Hoffman In 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'

By Kevin Jagernauth
|
January 10, 2013 3:28 PM
|
1 Comment

News

Well, you don't put food on the table with Oscar movies and arthouse fare. We love Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he's great in "The Master" and deserving of his Oscar nomination this morning, but we totally understand why the dude wants to hang around in the districts. It's good pay, probably not as taxing as acting opposite Joaquin Phoenix and the wigs are glorious.

By Benjamin Wright
|
September 8, 2012 5:48 PM
|
0 Comments

News

As in demand as he is right now, something that Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" is only going to cement, Joel Edgerton seems intent on marching to the beat of his own drum. So for his next film, rather than taking the Hollywood dime, he's working on thriller "Felony," based on his own script, and according to a press release, he's just got a great co-star, in the shape of Oscar-nominee Tom Wilkinson. In the Matthew Saville-directed project, Edgerton who plays a cop who accidentally hits a child in his car, only to lie about the accident, while Wilkinson plays the lead investigator of the incident. Sounds promising, although we're curious to see whether this turns out to be set in Australia, or in the U.S.

By Drew Taylor
|
August 2, 2012 10:59 AM
|
1 Comment

Reviews

Even by the admittedly low standards of a basically direct-to-video, shot-in-Bulgaria action thriller starring Christian Slater and Donald Sutherland as a pair of weathered old spies, "Assassin's Bullet" is a fucking chore. It seems to have been created at some kind of magical nexus where sluggish plotting, technical ineptitude, and iffy performances meet. It's a smorgasbord of awfulness, but one that you can't even find yourself enjoying, in a guilty pleasure, can-you-honestly-believe-this? way. It would be lucky to be one of those movies they premiere on Cinemax on Friday nights starring actors who clearly owed the IRS something.

By Oliver Lyttelton
|
February 21, 2012 4:31 PM
|
28 Comments

Features

Among the five Best Actor nominees at this Sunday's Academy Awards, there's one person who should have been sitting in the Kodak Theater long ago: at long last, Gary Oldman, one of the actors whose lack of awards recognition has long been lamented by the chattering film classes, gets to book a tuxedo and a limo, and call himself an Oscar nominee, thanks to his superb, understated performance as George Smiley in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy."

By Oliver Lyttelton
|
February 21, 2012 9:46 AM
|
6 Comments

Television

It's taken a while but "The State" veteran David Wain has cracked the mainstream. Having made his directorial debut a decade ago with the cult classic "Wet Hot American Summer," Wain took a while to get anything going again, but came roaring back with two films in two years, anthology "The Ten" and Paul Rudd/Seann William Scott-starrer "Role Models," the latter of which became something of a sleeper hit.

By Kevin Jagernauth
|
November 23, 2011 2:04 PM
|
3 Comments

News

While Bono is off saving the world, selling Blackberrys and buying even more ridiculous sunglasses, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. has been exercising some different creative muscles acting in, producing and composing a remake of Patrice Leconte's comic thriller "The Man On The Train." For real. The flim has actually done the festival circuit already, and is now available on VOD in some theaters around the country. But before you order it up, here's a clip that may sway you decision on whether or not to watch this either way.