The Playlist

Watch: Beverly Hills Retirement Home Holds Paintball Contest In Teaser Trailer For 'The Expendables 2'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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December 14, 2011 7:34 PM
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4 Comments

News

Listen. Carefully. On the wind. Can you hear something? A creak of bone. A distant cough. Someone complaining that they haven't taken their pills, asking if you remembered to record "NCIS," and saying how their grandkids are going to show them how to use the Google. That's right, Sylvester Stallone and his buddies are rolling back into town.

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Jason Statham Is A 'Hummingbird' In Directorial Debut Of 'Eastern Promises' Writer Steven Knight

By Kevin Jagernauth
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November 2, 2011 7:18 AM
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1 Comment

"Hummingbird"? Is Jason Statham getting all soft on us? Nah, bro. Just get him a towel, and we'll explain.

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Review: '13' Remake Proves To Be One Unlucky Number (To Put It Mildly)

By Gabe Toro
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October 27, 2011 8:21 AM
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4 Comments

It’s unfortunate, but there’s a Movie Content Hierarchy. Great filmmakers don’t pretend this exists -- Darren Aronofsky makes a horror movie and genre-hating critics love it, and former Fangoria mainstay David Cronenberg maintains his integrity and themes of perversion and body modification while becoming a boutique festival filmmaker. But more often than not, directors, screenwriter and producers are beholden to the unimaginative thought of “this is how it is meant to be done.” More specifically, films from other parts of the world, particularly smaller ones, have their own vocabulary, their own rhythms and idiosyncrasies. Gela Babluani’s “13 Tzameti” is one of those films, a slow burn thriller from France shot in stark black and white and featuring minimal accoutrement in terms of score, outsized performances, or onscreen violence. It’s a picture that aims low but with laser-sharp precision, to the point where you felt that Babluani was a major storytelling talent with little affection for sentimentality or empty showmanship.

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Michael Bay & Jason Statham Both Say They Aren't Involved In Any 'Transformers' Sequels Right Now

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 19, 2011 9:33 AM
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3 Comments

Looks like everyone jumped the gun a little bit on those "Transformers" sequels reported a couple of days ago. With Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner claiming he was already talking to Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay about sequels, and with trade reports buzzing that "Transformers 4" and "Transformers 5" would potentially shoot back-to-back with Jason Statham being eyed as the new lead, the news appears to have put the cart in front of the horse. Or something. As it turns out, both Bay and Statham have flat out denied their involvement in any forthcoming films.

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'Transformers 4 & 5' May Shoot Back-To-Back, Jason Statham Being Eyed As New Lead

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 18, 2011 2:06 AM
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9 Comments

Michael Bay May Come Back To DirectWhen it was reported earlier today that Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner was already talking to Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg about an (inevitable) "Transformers 4" details were vague, but some new intel has cropped up and clearly, neither the toymaker or the studio are fucking around.

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Jason Statham Reaches His Destiny, Sought For Two Future 'Fast & Furious' Sequels

By Oliver Lyttelton
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October 4, 2011 1:20 AM
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2 Comments

'Fast Six' And 'Fast Seven' May Be Shot Back-To-Back In EuropeFranchises, generally speaking, are more like fruit than cheese (bear with us, we are going somewhere with this). They might need a film to ripen to their full potential -- sequels generally outgross their predecessors -- but in the main they run their course by the third or fourth film, as opposed to, say, maturing and finding greater audiences and creative highs with each new installment. So we were as surprised as you were that not only was "Fast Five" the the highest grossing (over $600 million now, nearly double the haul of its "Fast and Furious" predecessors) entry of the series so far, but it was also by far the most fun.

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TIFF '11 Review: 'Killer Elite' Offers Some Cheap Thrills But Not Much Else

By Drew Taylor
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September 9, 2011 7:21 AM
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4 Comments

"Killer Elite," the new Jason Statham/Clive Owen/Robert De Niro testosterone tsunami, claims to have been inspired by a true story, and goes about setting the action in the early 1980s as a way of justifying its supposed historical validity. The problem, of course, is that the movie is so silly, so two-dimensionally cartoonish, that you don't buy, for a second, that anything depicted actually took place (the 1991 book on which the film is based, originally sold as a "true adventure," has been debunked and similarly derided). As a junky action movie, it passes muster, but for the historical thriller it pretends to be, it fails miserably.

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Review: Direct-To-DVD 'Blitz' Falls Somewhere In The Middle Of The Jason Statham Spectrum

By Gabe Toro
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September 4, 2011 2:33 AM
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2 Comments

The world of “Blitz” is made up almost entirely of cops. On this cop planet, where the occasional child wanders into trouble and eventually is saved by said cops, these 9-to-5ers struggle to pay bills, worry about pensions, and operate from dingy, drab boardrooms. There’s a stark contrast between the ratty, dilapidated apartments where they live and the pristine, glassy office of a police psychologist. Most of these men and women are punching a clock, and seem too far down the food chain to change anything about this.

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Is Jason Statham's 'Blitz' Going Straight-To-DVD In The U.S.?

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 25, 2011 6:58 AM
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0 Comments

Are moviegoers getting tired of a new Jason Statham movie every six to eight months where he plays a guy who has a job that requires him to beat people up? Granted, his resumé isn't the most varied but the actor has his niche and it seems to be serving both him and the studios well enough. In January, his latest "The Mechanic" opened up to Jason Statham Numbers which means $29 million domestic -- pretty much falling in line with the figures for "The Transporter," "Crank," "Cellular," "Death Race," and "The Bank Job." In an era of uncertainty at the box office he's about as close as it comes to a guarantee, though those numbers aren't going to get anyone at a studio promoted or anything.

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Jason Statham Goes Noir In 'Parker' Directed By Taylor Hackford, Penned By 'Black Swan' Co-Writer

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 18, 2011 4:12 AM
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4 Comments

Taylor Hackford already has an Oscar. No, no it's not for "Ray," it's actually for "Teenage Father," a short film he directed way, way back in 1979. And his filmography is mostly dramatic fare, stuff like "An Officer and a Gentleman," "Dolores Claiborne," "Proof Of Life" and last year's "Love Ranch." But as he closes in on seventy years old, Hackford is ready to get gritty.

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