The Playlist

Cannes: Andrew Dominik Says He's Aiming To Make "Emotional Nightmare Fairy-Tale" Marilyn Monroe Biopic 'Blonde' Next

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 25, 2012 12:05 PM
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6 Comments

News

After a few years in the wilderness after the masterpiece "The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford" underperformed at the box office, Andrew Dominik's third film -- initially titled "Cogan's Trade" after the George V. Higgins book on which it's based, and later retitled "Killing Them Softly" -- came together quite quickly. The first hints emerged in September 2010, and within a few months it had a star and producer in Brad Pitt, a distributor courtesy of The Weinstein Company, and rolled in front of cameras in early 2011.

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Cannes: Andrew Dominik On The Violence, Politics & Look Of 'Killing Them Softly' With Brad Pitt

By Aaron Hillis
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May 24, 2012 2:19 PM
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2 Comments

Features

In what turned out to be a banner year for the movies, "The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford" ended up somewhat overshadowed. As fellow neo-Westerns "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country For Old Men" swept up plaudits and Oscars, the picture, the second by Australian director Andrew Dominik, received some raves, but plenty of negative notices too, and it ended up making a miniscule amount at the box office. But by decade's end, many had since rediscovered the picture as one of the finest of the 00s, and as such, Dominik's first film since, crime tale "Killing Them Softly," was one of the most eagerly anticipated pictures of the Cannes film festival this year.

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Cannes: 'Killing Them Softly' Helmer Andrew Dominik Talks Music As Film: 'Jesse James' Was My Leonard Cohen Song, 'Killing Them Softly' Is A Pop Tune

By Benjamin Wright
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May 23, 2012 3:01 PM
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0 Comments

Features

A film that probably needs no introduction at this point, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” filmmaker Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly” has been setting the Croisette ablaze with high praises coming from all around, including our own reviewer who called it “brilliant and angry,” and most notably “the anti-thriller for our times.”

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Cannes Review: Brilliant & Angry 'Killing Them Softly' Is The Anti-Thriller For Our Times

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 22, 2012 6:09 AM
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17 Comments

Reviews

"What is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect," Barack Obama said at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. And that section of the speech opens Andrew Dominik's seething "Killing Them Softly," as he cuts the audio between white noise and the silent black title screen, signifying the blind emptiness of Obama's statement and the thematic current he'll be taking for the film. We are not a changed nation. We are not a nation of equals. The government are a bunch of children who need to be led by the hand into any decision making process and Americans at both the top and bottom rungs of the ladder all have their share of the blame to take. Uncompromising and uncommercial, divisive and brave, "Killing Them Softly" bitterly boils at the state of the nation.

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Look: Minimalist, '70s-Style Teaser Poster For Andrew Dominik's 'Killing Them Softly'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 21, 2012 2:34 PM
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3 Comments

News

We're about midway through Cannes as of today, and some big, high-profile titles have rolled out: "Lawless," "Rust & Bone" and "Moonrise Kingdom" among them. But there's plenty more major movies still to debut in competition, including "On The Road," "Cosmopolis," "Mud" and early tomorrow morning, Andrew Dominik's "Killing Them Softly," the Australian director's first film since the outstanding "The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford" in 2007.

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Cannes Clips: 'Killing Them Softly,' 'On The Road,' 'Lawless,' Mud,' 'The Paper Boy,' & Many More

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 17, 2012 9:12 PM
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5 Comments

News

Right now and for the next week or so, a few hundred lucky film critics (including representatives of The Playlist) are at the Cannes Film Festival where they get to see some of the most anticipated films of the year all within a few days of each other. But what are the rest of us to do? Sure, "Moonrise Kingdom" opens next week, but some of the films in competition at Cannes don't even have distributors, and it could be months or even years before they make it to movie houses in your own country.

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50 Cannes Photos & New Clips: 'Killing Them Softly,' Mungiu's 'Beyond The Hills,' Kiarostami's 'Like Someone In Love' & More

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 10, 2012 4:35 PM
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0 Comments

News

In case you haven't guessed, today the Cannes Film Festival dropped a megabomb of clips, pics and assorted ephemera for the full slate of films hitting the Croisette next week. We've highlight some of the material from the bigger movies already, and for the rest we've decided to round them all up for you right here.

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Watch: Ray Liotta Gets Manhandled In Solid First Clip From Andrew Dominik's 'Killing Them Softly'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 9, 2012 10:40 PM
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14 Comments

News

We're less than a week away from the Cannes Film Festival and over the next few days a plethora of clips and trailers will be arriving for the slew of highly anticipated titles making their way to the south of France. And a first glimpse at one of the most anticipated has made it's way online.

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The Playlist's 15 Most Anticipated Films Of The Cannes Film Festival

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 9, 2012 1:13 PM
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15 Comments

Features

A week from today, the 65th annual Cannes Film Festival will be getting underway on the south coast of France, opening with Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom," and as ever, it's possibly the biggest date in the cinephile calendar, with a host of hotly-anticipated films set to premiere over the ten days that follow. A jury headed up by Nanni Moretti, and also including Andrea Arnold, Ewan McGregor, Alexander Payne, Diane Kruger and Jean-Paul Gaultier will have to decide which of over twenty films to award the Palme d'Or to, but while the competition will be typically fierce in competition, there's plenty of gems to find in the Directors' Fortnight, Un Certain Regard and Critics' Week sidebars too.

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Garret Dillahunt Says First Cut Of 'Killing Them Softly' Was 2.5 Hours, Not Sure If He Made The Final Edit

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 25, 2012 12:41 PM
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7 Comments

News

Director Andrew Dominik is no stranger to long first cuts. As anyone who followed the tortured post-production on the director's contemporary classic "The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford" knows, the director battled Warner Bros. over the length and tone of the movie, and numerous editors were brought in to try and cut down a film that reportedly originally ran more than three hours. Regardless, the resulting film was magnificent and Pitt remained one of the director's biggest supporters. They reteamed for "Cogan's Trade," which was recently retitled "Killing Them Softly," and it looks like the director had a lot of material to work with once again.

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