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5 Actors Who Could Play Marvel's 'Black Panther'

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • June 6, 2012 11:19 AM
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  • 76 Comments
Features
For all their success so far, the Marvel movies have, aside from a few smallish parts, been a pretty lilywhite affair to date: only Samuel L Jackson was a significant minority presence in "The Avengers." But signs are that the studio aren't going to keep that up for too long: yesterday, it was reported that the company are actively moving ahead with a movie about "Black Panther," the African prince-turned-crimefighter, and are targeting a release in 2014 or 2015.
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More: Features, Marvel, Black Panther, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Boyega, Anthony Mackie, David Oyelowo, Chadwick Boseman

BAMCinematek Celebrates Tangerine Dream: We Pick Their 5 Best Soundtrack Scores

  • By Edward Davis
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  • June 5, 2012 6:28 PM
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  • 5 Comments
Features
As the New York Times so aptly observed this weekend, eerie '80s synths score are synonymous with the German experimental electronic music group Tangerine Dream. And yet, the group and their sinister and moody, but anonymous modulations, we're never celebrated as loudly in that era (or since) compared to the works of other '80s synth-heavy composers like Harold Faltermeyer ("Top Gun," "Fletch," "Beverley Hills Cop"), John Carpenter ("Escape from New York," "The Thing") and Vangelis ("Chariots of Fire," "Blade Runner").
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More: Tangerine Dream, BAMCinematek, William Friedkin, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott

'The Dark Knight Rises' Won't Reference The Joker At All, Plus More Revelations From Empire's Extensive Feature

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • June 5, 2012 11:25 AM
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  • 22 Comments
Features
We're now getting into the final stretch before "The Dark Knight Rises," probably the most anticipated film of a year that's had plenty of hotly anticipated pictures. After a main trailer a month or so back, we got another sneak peek of footage at Sunday's MTV Movie Awards, as well as a steady drip of posters and images that have managed to tease without giving away the whole shop.
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More: The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, David S. Goyer, Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Heath Ledger

5 Things You Might Not Know About 'Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan'

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • June 4, 2012 11:02 AM
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  • 7 Comments
Features
While "Star Trek" is now a huge, beloved franchise, recently reinvigorated by J.J. Abrams' reboot (and, fingers crossed, next year's sequel to that film), it wasn't always like that. The original 1960s series had low ratings, and only lasted three seasons, and while success in syndication let to a film version being greenlit in the aftermath of "Star Wars," that film, 1979's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," proved hugely expensive, and less profitable than Paramount had hoped.
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More: 5 Things You Might Not Know About..., Star Trek 2, On This Day In Movie History, Features

Videodrome: The Best Recent Music Videos, Including M83, The Walkmen & A-Trak

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • June 1, 2012 3:29 PM
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  • 3 Comments
Features
After a bit of a Cannes-related break, it's time for the return of Videodrome, our semi-regular showcase for the best music videos around. Since the form has given the world game-changing helmers in both the blockbuster and arthouse realms, it's always important to keep an eye on promos, and indeed, one could argue that there's more invention to be found in the short-form than there is in features. So, without further ado, the five best music videos we've seen in the last few weeks. As ever, any tips and suggestions are more than welcome.
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More: Videodrome

Discuss: As 'World War Z' Gets Seven Weeks Of Reshoots, Why Are So Many Tentpoles Being Delayed & Reworked?

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • June 1, 2012 10:01 AM
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  • 19 Comments
Features
Reshoots: they're the new principal photography, it would seem. Every so often, a story will crop up that some major movie has reassembled its cast and crew for what's usually referred to as "additional photography." And it's easy for that to be blown up into some kind of scaremongering story, when in actual fact, it's hard to find a film that doesn't go back for more after the main bulk of its shoot has wrapped. More often than not it's for "pick-ups" -- filling in some gaps, fixing some scenes that may have had some technical issues. Sometimes it's to add a new ending, or new scenes elsewhere in the picture, which may have occured to the filmmakers once in post-production. Virtually every major movie budgets and schedules for a week or two of additional photography, and almost every successful movie of the last few years -- "Avatar," "The Avengers," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2," "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" -- had some kind of reshoots.
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More: World War Z, Brad Pitt, Marc Forster, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Channing Tatum, Jon Chu, 47 Ronin, Carl Erik Rinsch

5 Fractured Fairy Tale Movies Worth Watching After 'Snow White And The Huntsman'

  • By Benjamin Wright
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  • May 31, 2012 11:57 AM
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  • 10 Comments
Features
Once upon a time there existed a cinematic landscape where not every feature-length fairy tale movie was drawn from a classic story, and the descriptor “fractured fairy tale” didn’t just mean gross-out humor and a Scottish-accented Mike Myers playing a big green ogre. While some of those films have certainly succeeded (this writer has a soft spot for the first “Shrek”), the kind of tale that the likes of the Brothers Grimm would collect in their oeuvre of beloved folklore was often of the darker-hued variety – pitting characters in bleak struggles that would see them rise from the ashes as better individuals for it in the end. Yes, the stories were simple, but they also served as a basis for many of the storytelling tropes that are used today – and may have influenced a few of our own moral compasses, with the fables acting as parables for life's lessons.
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More: Features, Snow White And The Huntsman, Guillermo del Toro, Ridley Scott, Neil Jordan, Beauty And The Beast, The Dark Crystal

5 Surprising & Controversial Cannes Film Festival Winners From Years Gone By

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • May 31, 2012 10:05 AM
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  • 15 Comments
Features
As much as people have quibbles with (much more democratically voted on) awards like the Oscars, the decisions by juries at film festivals tend to be even more contentious. Usually drawn from practitioners, actors, with a few other curious participants in there as well, jurors often come in with their own likes, dislikes and agendas, and in the absence of a unanimous choice, often end up settling for compromises.
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More: Features, Cannes Film Festival, Ken Loach, Julian Schnabel, Cristian Mungiu, Quentin Tarantino, Abbas Kiarostami

The Essentials: 5 Great Howard Hawks Films

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • May 30, 2012 10:56 AM
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  • 2 Comments
Features
We love a chamelonic director here at The Playlist, and Howard Hawks was one of the first, and one of the best. Across a 55-year career that spanned silents and talkies, black-and-white and color, Hawks tackled virtually every genre under the sun, often turning out films that still stand as among the best in that style. Romantic comedy? Two of the finest ever. War? "To Have And Have Not" and "Sergeant York," the latter of which won him his only Best Director Academy Award nomination (though he did win an Honorary Award in 1975, two years before his death). Science-fiction? The much ripped-off "The Thing From Another World." Gangster movies? "Scarface," which practically invented a whole genre. From film noir and melodrama to Westerns and musicals, Hawks took them all in his stride.
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More: The Essentials, On This Day In Movie History, Howard Hawks, Features

David Cronenberg Talks The Bizarre Love In 'Cosmopolis' Between Paul Giamatti & Robert Pattinson; Discusses The Film's Timely Social Relevance & More

  • By Edward Davis
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  • May 29, 2012 3:49 PM
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  • 0 Comments
Features
An adaptation of Don DeLillo’s titular and typically provocative novel, "Cosmopolis," is the first feature-length effort filmmaker David Cronenberg wrote himself since 1999's "eXistenZ." Cronenberg penned the screenplay in six days, and literally transcribed DeLillo's dialogue word for word in many scenes. Featuring an unlikely star in the lead, "Twilight" hearthrob Robert Pattinson, and set in the not-too-distant-future of New York, "Cosmopolis" centers on a 28-year-old billionaire and uncontested Wall Street king, Eric Packer. A financial golden boy living the dream, yet bored with his effortless existence, Parker's day takes a turn for the worse when a dark shadow is cast over the firmament of the Wall Street galaxy. As his empire potentially crumbles, an eruption of wild activity unfolds in the city's streets and Packer's paranoia intensifies during the course of his 24-hour odyssey and leads him to cross paths with a cast of characters that threaten to destroy his world.
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More: David Cronenberg, Cosmopolis

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