Idris Elba Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you're on Twitter, you already know that it's a drug. It's like a big get-together where you can talk to hundreds of people without committing yourself too seriously and before you know it ... poof ... you've just spent three hours talking about your summer reading. I've made a concerted effort to not let it overtake my life and I've generally succeeded.

But one aspect of Twitter that I find so pathetically alluring is the celebrity follow. Now, my time on Cinematical has already introduced me to a lot of Big Names, and while it's always fun and exciting to meet someone you like onscreen, it's often just work. Often, it's awkward work. I say that not to brag or play down the experience, but to stress that chasing celebrities just isn't my thing. Except on Twitter.

Twitter is like this shadowy, secret party where Hollywood's creme de la creme are eating, drinking, laughing, and filming, and they're coyly letting you watch. They casually drop names and TwitPics, and there's something about it that's so alluring once paired with a timestamp. The most recent example (and the one @scotteweinberg dared me to write about) was this Tweet from @F_Gary_Gray, director of the upcoming Law Abiding Citizen:

We all want to meet The Losers, especially with the studio who can seemingly do no wrong (aka Warner Bros) financing the whole thing. It has already has a heck of a cast and though it has kicked off filming in Puerto Rico, they've found time to add one more: Jason Patric, who Variety reports is playing the mysterious and villainous Max. Max is the one who turns a bunch of black ops badasses into the Losers who are out for vengeance, and there's no doubt Patric can lend some gravitas to the role.

Unfortunately, Variety and Patric felt the need to sour the sweet news up. The press-shy Patric sat down with with Mike Fleming in order to explain just how an actor of his caliber ends up playing a mere comic book villain. These days, it's apparently neccessary to "slum it" to keep working. Fleming laments the neccessity, noting "You know that geek validation has become a serious thing when actor's actor Jason Patric agrees to play his first real villain role in his first comic book movie."

When I first caught wind of the redundant "sex thriller" Obsessed, my first reaction was to adopt the voice of a blaxploitation announcer and Twitter things like "Bang! It's a black-on-white cat fight you KNOW is outta sight! Look out for the affirmative action Fatal Attraction, baby! Obsessed!" I walked in expecting a base, push-button and knee-jerk story of "white hoochie vs. black wife" story ... but unfortunately the movie turned out way too plain and generic to bother with such immaturities. Had they "trashed" it up a little bit, then Obsessed could have been a grade-A B-movie worth laughing at and cheering with. As it stands, Obsessed feels a lot like a refugee from the Lifetime Network that just happened to have a budget.

Idris Elba (who delivers a performance better than the movie deserves) plays a very successful investment banker named Derek who catches the eye of a pretty new temp (Ali Larter) called Lisa. But Derek is quite married, you see, and rather happily, as would you be if you got to sleep with Beyonce Knowles every night. But that doesn't stop Lisa from (ever so s l o w l y) getting under the skin of poor Derek, and before too long we're dealing with a very basic yet powerful case of, well, obsession. No matter how many times he professes his love for wife Sharon, the tantalizing temp just keeps on flirting. Heavily, shamelessly, redundantly. After about an hour of altercations between Derek and Lisa both predictable and obvious, we finally get into the Act III catharsis, which is when the frequently-dormant Beyonce gets to stand tall and kick some serious booty.

Yesterday's New York Times featured a rather flattering profile on Screen Gems president Clinton Culpepper and how his Sony studio arm reliably turns a profit on its comedy and thriller titles. Despite Culpepper declining to be interviewed for the piece, it goes noted amidst "past and present associates" that the man has a preference for "the white comedy, done black," a supposed genre brought up with regards to Chris Rock's forthcoming remake of Death at a Funeral with an all African-American cast.

The minority-cast likes of You Got Served, Stomp the Yard and This Christmas have certainly proven profitable for Screen Gems, but do any of you out there refuse to see Funeral or The Big Chill, and yet may fork money over if those films were done with a more superficially familiar ensemble? Or do you personally wish for more out of niche filmmaking meant to appeal to the African-American audience than the wacky antics of Martin Lawrence and Madea?

And with regards to this Friday's Obsessed, is there a double standard with regards to a white woman (Ali Larter) interfering with the happiness of a black couple (Idris Elba and Beyonce Knowles)? If the roles were reversed (and if the alleged working title of Oh No She Didn't were kept instead), would everyone be up in arms about stereotyping and such? On the flip side, would anyone argue that having a white villainess is maybe being too politically correct? Let us know.

When Warner Bros first announced they were green-lighting an adaptation of DC/Vertigo series The Losers with Sylvain White directing, it elicited only a minor flicker of interest out of me. It's a not a lost series, per say, but it's not one that a lot of people have read and enthused about.

The plotline is like any action movie you've ever seen: A Special Forces team that's betrayed by its handler, left for dead, and who regroup to seek revenge. Dubbing themselves "The Losers," they seek to remove their names off a CIA death list, and to work against a massive conspiracy involving their handler, "Max."

But now! Now it has a very respectable cast! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana are being recruited into the Special Forces. Elba will be playing Roque, the scarred second-in-command, an icy fellow who is motivated purely by money. Saldana will play Aisha, whose both a loose cannon and a cold-blooded killer who leaves a trail of corpses behind her. They'll join Jeffery Dean Morgan, who must have enjoyed Watchmen so much that he'll do anything DC/Warner Bros related. He'll be playing Clay, the meticulous leader.

There's still a few Losers to be cast, and color me curious as to who else the script (penned by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt) can attract. Sure, it could be cartoony and crappy but I have a weird trust in Mogan, Elba and Saldana, and I think it's going to be worth following from this point on. Mea culpa, Warner Bros.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Obsessed, starring Idris Elba, Beyoncé Knowles and Ali Larter. Directed by Steve Shill, Obsessed follows in the footsteps of films like Fatal Attraction or The Temp in that it tells of a married well-to-do suit (Elba) who accidentally shacks up with a temp worker (Larter) at the office. Of course, if the movies have taught you anything, it's that the woman you cheat on your wife with will not just walk away from the fling empty handed -- and, as such, Larter's temp causes more than enough trouble for the man and his wife (Knowles).

Obsessed hits theaters on April 24. Check out the trailer over on Moviefone and the full image of the poster by clicking below.

Any movie that begins with a dog wearing a human mask is in serious trouble. If it wants to use that kind of dream snippet as a launch pad for exploring a demented and increasingly bizarre world, if it wants to embrace a loony aesthetic and milk it for all it's worth, wonderful. Deliver a solid, jolting, dazzling, surprising thriller, and all will be forgiven.

On the other hand, if it desperately wants to be taken seriously, if it proceeds in a very measured and sober manner, if it becomes increasingly sedate as it calmly plods through tedious exposition, then you have a mess on your hands.

The Unborn looks like a ghost story, feels like a ghost story, and kinda sounds like a ghost story, but it's dead on arrival. Because writer/director David S. Goyer has been associated with a host of projects with which I have a natural affinity, I was cautiously optimistic that his fourth directorial outing (after ZigZag, Blade: Trinity, and The Invisible) might reflect more of the pulpy, noirish mood and momentum that are evident in some of the best scripts for which he's been credited in part or in whole (Dark City, Blade II, Batman Begins).

Instead, all the juice has been drained from The Unborn. Not even the sight of the lovely, lean and fit Odette Yustman, whose last name became Yowza! when the trailer and pics first hit the net, can salvage the film from mediocrity.

On the heels of a few images that popped up earlier this month, you can check out the newly released trailer for Obsessed above. Does it look just a little bit familiar?

It should, if you ever watched Glenn Close stalk Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction. Jumping ahead a few years with Obsessed, Idris Elba plays the poor man who just tried to have a quick fling with his new temp (Ali Larter), only to have her go psycho. She gets busy with suicide attempts, stalking, cutting the wife (Beyoncé Knowles) out of the family pictures -- all that fun stuff. Larter even tries to pull off the trench coat seduction, although set to the music, it looks pretty funny and not at all comfortable or seductive. On the plus side, we need more Jerry O'Connell!

It looks like it could be some good campy fun, although I doubt that's the mood they were going for. But what say you? Can Ali Larter hold a torch to the bunny-vicious Close?