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Cannes 2013: Surprises & Notable Absence ...

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Interviews

Exclusive: New Trailer For Baltasar Kormakur's Award-Winning Icelandic Thriller 'The Deep'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 18, 2013 10:11 AM
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1 Comment

News

While American audiences may be familiar with Baltasar Kormakur thanks to his Hollywood debut on last year's hit "Contraband" starring Mark Wahlberg, in his native Iceland, the filmmaker is not just respected as a director, but as an actor as well. Films like "Jar City" (which he helmed, and there's a remake in the works) and "Reykavik-Rotterdam" (in which he starred; the film was remade as "Contraband") -- and oh yeah, he was a producer on both -- helped put him on the map, and of course, Hollywood came calling. But he never left home completely, and while later this summer his re-teaming with Wahlberg for the action flick "2 Guns" will hit theaters, coming first is a film that saw Kormakur return home to tell a gripping true story.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 12, 2013 1:49 PM
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3 Comments

News

So just how busy is Martin Scorsese at any given moment? Well, here's a taste: he's currently in post-production on his next feature, "The Wolf Of Wall Street," he's producing a documentary about the late Roger Ebert, working on a movie project about the New York Review Of Books, developing a TV series based on "Gangs Of New York," executive producing new films for Luc Besson and Andrew Lau, and he also signed up to direct a documentary about Bill Clinton for HBO. And this is all stuff that happened in 2013. So is it a surprise that something that cropped up in 2011 might not be happening?

By Oliver Lyttelton
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February 19, 2013 12:00 PM
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3 Comments

News

Mountains: the new volcanoes. Fifteen years ago, erupting hills of lava formed the basis of dueling studio tentpoles, in the form of "Volcano" and "Dante's Peak," and now a similar showdown is brewing over their more dormant, solid cousins, with the announcement of a second film focusing on the tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest. A little while back it was announced that Sony were planning "Everest," with Doug Liman directing and Tom Hardy starring, about George Mallory, the first man to attempt the peak, only to die on the third attempt (spoiler!).

By Jen Vineyard
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January 12, 2012 4:08 PM
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0 Comments

News

Whenever Mark Wahlberg is a producer on a film he's starring in, he sits down with the director and the casting director (usually Sheila Jaffe) and comes up with a wish list of who he'd like to be in the cast -- "Contraband" is the first time he got "our first choice for most of the parts in the film."

By Gabe Toro
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January 11, 2012 6:30 PM
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0 Comments

Reviews

Chris Farraday, the protagonist of “Contraband,” is a popular movie construct. Handsome, wide-shouldered, and with a movie-star smile, he’s tough enough to have done some Very Bad Things, but also principled enough to be retired by the time we meet him. Chris is an ex-drug smuggler, and the life doesn’t seem to have done much for him. Clad in form-fitting jeans and tee-shirts, he still hangs out at the same ratty bars with his low-life former criminal acquaintances. It’s a character as walking, talking movie shorthand: we know what he was, what he is, and, likely, what he’ll have to become again.

By Jen Vineyard
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January 9, 2012 9:57 AM
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5 Comments

News

Remember that alleged rift between Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell? Despite their three films together -- "Three Kings," "I Heart Huckabees," and "The Fighter" -- and Wahlberg being one of the director's main cheerleaders (unlike, say, George Clooney), there may be something to the rumors. The Playlist spoke to Wahlberg last week and when the subject of Russell came up, the actor became quiet and diplomatic.