MatthewGoode Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Who started the whole cliche where an uptight American woman hits Ireland and finds out how to loosen up by a sexy, foreign man? There's something in the water over there in Hollywood's version of the country that makes every bloody romantic comedy feature this premise. It's not as bad as something like The Ugly Truth, that's for sure, but it pretty darned blatant.

Following in the footsteps of Matchmaker, P.S. I Love You, and other romantic fare, MSN has debuted a trailer for Leap Year (check it out after the jump), the film where Matthew Goode gets to recover from the trauma of losing his new wife to a female florist (Imagine Me and You), and steal a desperate Amy Adams from the likes of Adam Scott. Now granted, she is on her way to Dublin and meets the man in Wales, but they're still heading to the land of shamrocks.

I guess there's just a strong Irish gene that burrows deep within a man and lets him see when a self-absorbed foreign woman will be the girl of his dreams, allowing him to be the romantic savior showing her untapped inner potential and true romance and security. But why, exactly, is Anand Tucker -- who brought us Hilary and Jackie, Shopgirl, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, and Red Riding: 1983 -- directing this schlock?

Check it out, if you dare, after the jump, and beware: it shows a lot. Then again, this does look like a typical romcom, so we already know how it turns out, right?

Prepare to be bludgeoned. Watchmen is sledgehammer entertainment, an action epic with tremendous production values that acknowledges good and evil but is much more interested in things that go boom.

As director Zack Snyder amply demonstrated in his previous adaptations of other people's strikingly original source material (Dawn of the Dead and 300), he is more than up to the task of creating a multitude of dynamic, viscerally-exciting action sequences. As a bonus, there are small moments in Watchmen that prompt warm, unexpected laughter, skillfully-recreated scenes that inspire pure fanboy bliss, and one lengthy flashback segment that is entirely transcendent, as dazzling, thoughtful, and emotionally-stirring as anything I've seen in recent years.

And then there's the rest of the movie, which crams in a remarkably high percentage of the plot points from the original Watchmen series of comic books by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and faithfully includes tiny details, classic panels and a checklist of characters. Yet it skims over deeper reflections about masked crime fighters, superheroes, the essential nature of man, and the future of the world. It's like someone decided the alphabet was too long: most of the consonants are still there, but Watchmen is missing a couple of vowels.

The film features a bewildering assemblage of performances, with juicy turns by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley, wildly uneven, uncertain performances by Malin Akerman and Patrick Wilson, and sleepy monotone pronouncements by Billy Crudup and Matthew Goode. Some of the actors sound as though they're delivering their lines for the first time, reading off cue cards.

In 2008, the biggest movies of the year were superhero movies: The Dark Knight and Iron Man. In 2009, another superhero movie looks to be equally huge, and that's Watchmen, Zack Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel.

First published as a serial comic book in 1986, Watchmen was immediately heralded for turning the notion of a "superhero story" on its head. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, Watchmen depicts a group of vigilantes who band together to fight crime; they have costumes, but no unusual powers ... save Doctor Manhattan, a scientist who acquires supernatural abilities after being caught in an experiment gone wrong.

There's been a lot of talk (maybe too much talk -- OK, sorry, antiquated U2 reference) about Zack Snyder's involvement in the project, which has taken eons to get off the ground. Would he be faithful to the book? Too faithful, not faithful enough? How would he handle all the side stories, and such a large ensemble cast?

Now you can get the answers straight from the horses' mouths, as Moviefone's Unscripted interview series is bringing several of the stars of Watchmen together to talk about the movie. Now's your chance to grill Patrick Wilson (Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl), Billy Crudup (Dr. Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan), Matthew Goode (Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias) and Malin Akerman (Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre) about their geek knowledge of the comic book, about what it felt like to wear all that rubber or play a ginormous blue man ... or whatever else your fanboy/girl heart may desire.

Submit your question in the comments section below for Crudup, Goode, Akerman or Wilson by Tues, Feb. 17, and be sure to include your first name and the city where you live. Then check back here on March 2 to see if your question made the cut. Thanks, and good luck.

It's a Watchmen week! New photos and posters are hitting the Internet this week, presumably in anticipation of the second trailer that's attached to Quantum of Solace. Yesterday Erik posted a new Rorschach-themed poster that had popped up on Yahoo! Movies over the weekend, now we have six new ones (including an extra Rorschach) to accompany it.

Warner Bros. released the six character posters all across the Internet -- and we were able to collect most of them here in our gallery, except for the one the boys most want to see. Silk Spectre is over on your left, watermarked to MTV's Splash Page, but if you click her, you'll be taken to her full length version. I'm as straight as can be, but even I can't take my eyes off her latex. Wow.

Please give a visit and a nod to the other sites that were graced with these cool images -- my personal favorite of the bunch, The Comedian, was posted over at the always awesome Hero Complex (who will have more Watchmen images later today). Dr. Manhattan was posted in a tiny, low-res version at Entertainment Weekly. (Come on, where's the big version, guys?) The really cool Ozymandias poster, costarring Bubastis, debuted over at Wired. Nite Owl comes by way of Access Hollywood, accompanied there by an automatic video of Patrick Wilson. And everyone's favorite vigilante, Rorschach, got his second poster of the week courtesy of USA Today.

They really are pretty glorious to look upon. And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to furiously exercise in order to wake up resembling Malin Akerman.



[via Superhero Hype, who did the collecting]

Being the replaced man in Imagine Me & You, Matthew Goode (soon-to-be Watchmen) managed to balance the anger and loneliness of being second place while his wife found true love with their wedding florist. Now The Hollywood Reporter posts that he gets to be the dead remembrance of A Single Man along with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.

This is Tom Ford's adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel about a gay Englishman and professor named George (Firth). Over the course of one day, the story follows George as he tries to continue his normal life and routine after the death of his partner Jim (Goode). Moore will play one of his fellow professors.

It'll be nice to see Firth take on an entirely different romantic role, in the wake of his many typical romances. As for the story, being "one of the first and best novels of the modern gay liberation movement," it should come as no surprise that the book was dedicated to friend and fellow writer Gore Vidal. So perhaps Vidal can play an educated cameo once again? We'll know soon enough -- the project is about to head into production.

I don't ask for autographs, I don't send fan letters, and I certainly don't wait around in front of hotels or press lines -- but I do get to attend some verrrrry geeky movie events, I do have a few very cool friends, and (get this) I'm a pretty friendly and sincere guy. So sometimes I get cool snapshots. Call it a hobby inspired by the time I did a (very brief) Sundance interview with the monolithic James Woods and walked away without a photo with one of my actor-heroes. (Despite the fact that I had a perfectly good camera in my pocket.) Plus I work for a cool movie blog, which means I can get photos like these and actually call it ... work! (muffled giggles)

My gracious thanks to everyone in and behind the photos. And my apologies to everyone else for my always looking so bald, sweaty, and tired. (You only see pictures of me when I'm exhausted. Plus I'm just plain old goofy looking, so save your comments.)

Some might question whether Brideshead Revisited, the classic novel by Evelyn Waugh, needed to be revisited in a film adaptation; the novel, after all, has been adapted once before in a lengthy and well-beloved British television serial. Fortunately for fans of Waugh's work, this film version of Brideshead, directed by Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Becoming Jane) off a screenplay written by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, is beautifully shot, painstakingly directed, and well worth watching. For the most part, the filmmakers avoid mutilating Waugh's work, although the end result does place a greater emphasis on certain aspects (romance) and limit or eliminate others altogether (the brilliantly written discourses on religion and love that permeate the book).

The film is shot in Castle Howard, also the setting for the miniseries version, and Brideshead itself is a majestic, imposing character that looms over all who encounter it. The screenplay is rather a masterful adaptation; the film handles the compression of years through the storyline with a bit of book-ended time-jumping to both introduce us to the lead characters and close out the story, and Brock and Davies do an able job of whittling the story down to meet the needs of a cinematic experience without losing the feel of Waugh's novel in the process.

One of my favorite classic novels, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, is coming your way in a new adaptation starring what looks to be a perfectly suited cast. Matthew Goode, (Match Point, The Lookout) stars as Charles Ryder, the tale's protagonist and narrator, who befriends the wealthy Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw). When Sebastian brings Charles for a visit to his family's estate, Brideshead Castle, Charles meets Sebastian's sister, Lady Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell, Cassandra's Dream).

Emma Thompson plays Lady Marchmain, Sebastian and Julia's aristocratic mother, a Roman Catholic for whom her husband, Lord Marchmain, converted his faith from Anglican; in the book, at least, Catholicism is an influence on both the lives and conversations of the characters, especially Lady Marchmain, who uses the duel thumbscrews of guilt and manipulation to control others ... this is a character Thompson can really sink her teeth into, and I look forward to seeing her take on the role.

Casting bites for this past weekend:

• Earlier this month, Erik brought news of Lindsay Lohan backing out of her role in the upcoming Oscar Wilde adaptation, A Woman of No Importance. Now, according to a slew of sources, Lohan has been replaced with none other than Jessica Biel. A few years ago this might have seen like a strange replacement, when La Lindsay wasn't boozing it up, and Biel was more known for screams and underwear dancing. However, after a surprising stint in The Illusionist, this could very well be a blessing for Importance. At the very least, it should have much less production drama and gossip.
• I'm sorry fans of the original miniseries, but Brideshead Revisited is getting definitely getting made, and the film has found its leading men. As I previously reported, Julian Jarrold was looking to bring the Evelyn Waugh novel to the big screen. Now The Hollywood Reporter has shared the stars of the film -- Matthew Goode (Heck from Imagine Me & You) and Ben Whishaw (Stoned, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer). Goode will be Charles Ryder (previously played by Jeremy Irons), and Whishaw will be Sebastian Flyte (previously played by Anthony Andrews).
• A whole slew of names and roles have been added to the international film, Adam Resurrected. In December, we brought you news of the upcoming film, which had already signed Jeff Goldblum in the lead, and Willem Dafoe as a co-star (his role has since been released -- that of a concentration camp commandant). German actress Veronica Ferres, who has been added to the cast, says of the film: "There have been many movies about the Holocaust, but this is the first one where Americans, Israelis and Germans have worked together." And she's right -- the rest of the international cast include: Hana Laszlo, Evgenia Dudina, Joachim Król, Juliane Köhler, Ayelet Zurer and Moritz Bliebtreu from Run Lola Run.