Thompson on Hollywood

First Look: Ari Folman's 'Bashir' Follow-Up 'The Congress,' Starring Robin Wright, Due in 2013

News

Ari Folman has given Israeli film blog Cinemascope an update on his "Waltz With Bashir" follow-up, "The Congress," his liberal reworking of the 1971 Stanislaw Lem sci-fi novel, "The Futurological Congress." In the animated film Robin Wright plays herself as an aging actress who has sold Hollywood digital rights to her younger likeness. (Trailer below.) The film mixes present-day live action with an animated future, and take the character forward 20 years. Folman wanted to cast an actress who was willing to play herself in the role; he considered Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Jason Leigh and others. Folman is doing most of the work on this Israeli/Polish/French coproduction from his Jaffa studio, where he made "Bashir." Writes Folman:

By Anne Thompson
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December 22, 2011 2:55 PM
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Trailer Watch: First Look at Andrew Stanton's John Carter

Video

Check out the new poster--better than the last one--and first trailer from "John Carter," Pixar writer-director Andrew Stanton's over-budget live-action/performance capture epic based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel about a Civil War vet who winds up on Mars and discovers the planet is inhabited by giant green barbarians. It opens March 12. (See full-sized poster here.)

By Jacob Combs
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December 1, 2011 12:42 PM
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First Look: Cianfrance's Place Beyond the Pines Stars Badass Ryan Gosling and Cop Bradley Cooper

Check out the leading men of Blue Valentine writer-director Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines, currently in post. Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper co-star as a motorcycle-badass/bank robber and a cop/politician, respectively. Their lady loves are played by Eva Mendes and Rose Byrne. Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom) and Ray Liotta also co-star. It almost sounds too good to be true, but Gosling's hair brings us down to reality.

By Sophia Savage
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October 28, 2011 5:00 AM
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Trailer Watch: Christian Bale's Flowers of War Is Not Delicate Film, Looks Gorgeous, Horrifying

TOH! caught twenty minutes of gorgeous, horrifying footage of Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War (formerly Heros of Nanking) at Toronto, along with every distributor in town. It's China's most expensive movie to date, and will open there and across Asia on December 16, and is rumored to be near a deal for US distribution. The film stars Christian Bale, with what looks like a strong performance, as a mortician in wartorn 1937 Nanking who steps up to protect a group of schoolgirls and prostitutes taking shelter at the Winchester Cathedral. Adapted by Liu Heng from the novel by Geling Yan, it is inspired by true events during the Rape of Nanking. Here's more from Toronto. The film is China's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

By Anne Thompson and Sophia Savage
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October 20, 2011 8:14 AM
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New Stills from My Week With Marilyn: Seduction of the Media Begins with Gorgeous Michelle Williams

We just got a peek at the trailer, and now Moviefone has a few new stills from My Week with Marilyn. Star Michelle Williams may not be a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe, but she's channeling something that rings true. The synopsis and more photos of Williams' co-stars Eddie Redmayne and Kenneth Branagh are below. The film premieres October 9.

By Sophia Savage
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October 7, 2011 4:22 AM
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Poster Watch: Eastwood's J. Edgar Features Angry Multi-Colored DiCaprio

New word on Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar from someone who has seen it: Leonardo DiCaprio is even better as the old J. Edgar Hoover than he is as the young one. The movie, written by Milk Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black, cuts back and forth between the beginning and the end of Hoover's stellar five-decade FBI career, and suggests the tragedy of a hidden romance between the FBI chief and his longtime assistant Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). And yes, DiCaprio gives an Oscar-worthy performance. "To me, it's really a story of how absolute power corrupts absolutely," the star told EW. "He was always an outsider."

By Anne Thompson and Sophia Savage
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October 7, 2011 4:19 AM
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First Look: Depp, Pfeiffer, Bonham Carter in Burton's Unearthly Dark Shadows Ensemble

With Johnny Depp background and center as a centuries-old vampire, this "family photo" from the upcoming Dark Shadows film, directed by Tim Burton, reveals an unearthly ensemble. Dark Shadows will revamp the ABC 1966-1971 soap opera, which focused on the lives of supernatural siblings and their extended family, including witches, ghosts, and all manners of gothic horrors.

By Maggie Lange
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September 23, 2011 3:16 AM
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Trailer Watch: Beauty and the Mexican Drug Beast in Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala

Check out the trailer for Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala, from exec producers Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. The film stars Stephanie Sigman in a breakout role, and has been gaining positive word of mouth since its debut at Cannes. ThePlaylist calls it "visceral and layered" in their stellar review. Fox will release the film in the US in January.

By Sophia Savage
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September 12, 2011 3:45 AM
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TIFF: Pariah Gets Release Date and Poignant Poster

Focus Features initiated an online outreach to choose the poster for the upcoming Sundance drama, Pariah. The winner was "Subway," a poster showing actress Adepero Oduye staring out a window and at herself--an apt image for a film about a 17-year-old woman from Brooklyn coming to terms with her identity as a lesbian.

By Maggie Lange
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September 7, 2011 5:25 AM
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Unsettling The Patron Saints Looks at Life in Nursing Home

The Patron Saints provides an unsettling glimpse inside the disquieting and often disturbing life at a nursing home (trailer posted below). In this documentary, which will debut at the Toronto Film Festival, filmmakers Brian Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky use a storytelling approach to provide a cinematic narrative to this often-ignored subject.