ShiaLabeouf Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In 1987, Oliver Stone brought us one of that decade's most iconic characters -- Gordon Gekko, the amoral corporate raider who takes a young stockbroker under his wing and teaches him the religion of making money, exemplified by the motto "Greed is good." As played by Michael Douglas, Gekko was slick, charismatic, brilliant, and utterly without ethics, and he came to represent the profit-at-any-cost attitude of the Reagan-era corporate America.

23 years later, Stone's revisiting Gekko with Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. IMDb has the teaser trailer, In which we see Gekko being freed after a long, long stint in prison (check out his brick-sized "mobile phone") and, presumably, having to rebuild his empire from the ground up.

Gekko's young counterpart this time around is Shia LaBeouf, reportedly playing the fiance of Gekko's daughter. It's a fair bit of casting, although it seems inspired more by LaBeouf's current hot status in Hollywood; in 1987, Charlie Sheen was a brilliant choice to play Gekko's protege, in no small part because Sheen's looks and mannerisms helped support the father-son subtext. Can the star of Even Stevens and Transformers stand toe-to-toe with Douglas on screen? It's hard to tell from the trailer, but it'll certainly be a boost to LaBeouf's acting cred if he pulls it off.

Funny how when you give up paying attention to a franchise, news on its future developments goes in one ear and out the other. I enjoyed the first Transformers, feeling it delivered an enjoyable blend of big budget action and whiz-bang effects, but absolutely hated Revenge of the Fallen. I could barely wait for it to end and by the time the credits signaled I could finally flee the theater, I had sworn off the series. Since then, I've only been paying vague attention to any progress on a new film, mainly because all news concerning said film seemed to revolve around the supremely untalented Megan Fox.

I was kind of surprised when I came across a headline this morning at IESB that declared filming on the untitled part 3 was set to begin this May. I know I've been ignoring Transformers news for the most part, but I thought word that Michael Bay and company were all officially coming back would have stood out. Turns out it did not. But considering that those big, brawling robots are relevant to pop culture, I figured it was best I scan back and read up on where production stands.

• Michael Bay is returning to direct, despite initially saying he needed a year to recover from Revenge of the Fallen.
• Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have moved on and will not be returning to script part 3. Ehren Kruger, the man largely responsible for all of the bad things about Revenge, will take over writing duties.
• Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox are both signed on. Unfortunately for us, the studio probably won't let Bay kill off Fox in the opening scene.
• Bay wants this new film to focus more on the "characters", particularly the relationship between Sam and Bumblebee. He also wants his big budget action movie to have less action.

Paramount is still looking to stick to the July 1st, 2011 release date earmarked before Revenge of the Fallen even came out. With filming set to begin in May, we should start getting our first official glimpses of Transformers 3 late summer. Will 'less action, more characters' be enough to sway back audiences spurned by the assault on the senses that is Transformers 2? Only time will tell.

After a month of Cinematical expertly digging through one genre after another and nailing down the best entries in each one during the last decade, it seemed like there was an important cache of contributions that might not get the recognition they deserved: breakthrough performances or films. Such a designation crosses the boundaries of genre, sometimes happens in a film less deserving of praise, or otherwise finds itself overlooked. But after poring over the list of so many thousands of movies made in the last ten years, I've put together a svelte collection of superlative contributions which I believe qualify as the breakthroughs of the decade.

(It should be noted that we aren't pretending that these actors and filmmakers never made movies before the ones we're celebrating here. Rather, these are the moments in their career that they crossed over and introduced themselves in a way that audiences could no longer ignore.)

Armed with a collection of the world's notable directors, Paris je t'aime hit screens with a good deal of impact and buzz. It was to be the first piece in producer Emmanuel Benbihy's "Cities of Love," a collection of films detailing romance and metropolitan life across the globe, a series planning to travel to the likes of New York, Rio, Shanghai, Jerusalem, and Mumbai.

Three years later, the second installment is finally upon us with New York, I Love You. With only minor changes, the film continues the tradition of joining many internationally diverse filmmakers for the journey through a popular city, but the buzz has diminished. The film is slowly making its way across screens in the U.S., and will break into Canada come November 27. But how could one of Hollywood's most beloved cities find its ode so woefully under the radar? It's not an easy question to answer because while New York, I Love You might be flawed, it's also sweet, engaging, and nicely representative of that small island cluttered with millions of people.

Recently, I rejoiced about all of the upcoming projects that The Proposition and The Road director John Hillcoat's got brewing. But there's also another in turnaround that's getting new life. As The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz Blog reports, there's a whole slew of talent circling around the once-struggling The Wettest County in the World. Scarlett Johansson's name has been thrown around as well as one heck of a diverse mix of young male talent -- Ryan Gosling, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Shannon, and Paul Dano.

Sorry, Shia, but I feel compelled to sing: "Which of these boys is not like the other?" If there's any chance of getting into one of those odd-man-out scenarios, this would be the one. i can't imagine they're all up for the same part (as there are 4 main gigs), but could he really compare to four actors who have proven themselves to be quite hardcore and skilled? I don't care how many big-box office films he's been in, there's a difference between money and impressive acting skills.

A period piece rife with Depression-era bootleggers, Wettest is a crime drama based on author Matt Bondurant's own grandfather and great-uncles. The trio were a moonshine-led criminal gang, and the film will follow them alongside a writer named Sherwood Anderson who's "on the trail of the bootlegging story" and researching the 1936 novel Kit Brandon.

I say drop the names who can't compare and go wild because this combination sounds almost perfect. (We wouldn't want another Appaloosa/Renee Zellweger scenario!) How 'bout you?

Oliver Stone's sequel to his classic '80s tale of slick, money-hungry stockbrokers, Wall Street, is racking up quite the cast. Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps already has Shia LaBeouf, Susan Sarandon, Frank Langella, Michael Douglas, and arthouse It Girl Carey Mulligan (An Education) signed up for a 21st century take on greed on whether or not it's good (answer: probs not). But the big rumor all summer has been that Josh Brolin will take over the role of the villain after Javier Bardem turned down the role.

Well, as our buddies over at the esteemed website The Playlist point out, in this weekend's New York Times Oliver Stone casually confirms the rumors that Josh Brolin will indeed be playing the villain, and Charlie Sheen will be popping up in a cameo as his character from the original, Bud Fox.

Now that the real Wall Street and its counterparts around the world have felt the collective shudder of the past year's financial implosion, Stone is hoping to show some hope for redemption for Gekko.

"In his first run at Wall Street, Mr. Stone produced characters and a portrayal that lived longer than he ever expected and with unintended consequences. But he never would have made a second version if it didn't appear that the system, and high finance, had finally been brought to its knees.

'We wouldn't have done this movie in 2006,' he said. "'Things were too loose. I didn't want to glorify pigs.'"

(Welcome to a brand new feature here on Cinematical, where members of our staff will write about films that, for one reason or another, they'll never watch. Which movies do you refuse to see? Here's Jessica with her reasons why she'll never watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.)

I've got an open mind when it comes to going to the movies. If I have a hankering to watch a movie, there's very little that a critic or fan can do to dissuade me from shelling out my hard earned dollars. But every once in a while there's a film that even I can't bring myself to watch, and Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is one of those movies. Now, usually when I avoid watching a film, it's because I'm just not that interested in the actual movie (you know, things like story, genre, stars, etc.). But my reluctance to watch Revenge of The Fallen went way beyond indifference and into a whole new realm of 'taking a stand'.

Just to be clear, I saw the first Transformers flick and it was forgettable, but it wasn't all bad. Cut to two years later, and the new trailers for Fallen had me thinking: "Well, this certainly looks better than the last time" and I had every intention of spending an afternoon with giant robots kicking the crap out of each other. But then I saw Bay's ShoWest footage, which consisted of a crying Bumblebee living in Sam's garage while Fox stripped for no reason whatsoever ... and that was only the beginning. By the time Fallen had hit theaters I knew there was no way in hell this movie was going to get my money or my time.

After the jump: the top three reasons I will never see Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen...

Sometimes the unlikeliest movies attract the strongest casts. Is it the coincidence of schedules, the attraction of a high-quality director, or a dynamite script? Maybe it's all three in the case of Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, which is drawing quality actors like the proverbial flies to honey.

A couple of months ago, we heard that Javier Bardem was the top pick for the role of a villainous hedge fund manager. Now Variety says that Josh Brolin is "reportedly circling a part," though it doesn't specify which one, and other rumors are circulating that actress Carey Mulligan (An Education) may be up for the role of Winnie, the estranged daughter of Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas, reprising his role). Variety also reports that Frank Langella is "in talks" to play the old-time broker / mentor to up-and-coming trader Shia LaBeouf, whose character is engaged to Gecko's daughter. The latter bit of news sounds more solid than the other casting rumors.

Douglas won an Academy Award for the original Wall Street, and Langella was nominated for last year's Frost/Nixon, so the caliber of the cast is definitely trending upwards -- I'd love to see those two argue with each other! Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps is already a strong contender for the unofficial title of "Best Cast of 2010," and if they keep adding high-quality actors, it won't even be a contest. Of course, the quality of the film itself depends on the well-modulated execution of a good script, and that remains to be seen.

I guess this is the news that nobody was waiting for, but the threat of another Indiana Jones film has been inching closer to reality by the day, and now The Insider has received reports that Harrison Ford will be polishing off the fedora and the whip one last time. There have been rumblings about a fifth film ever since Crystal Skull first hit theaters, but now we've gone past rumblings and finally started to hear some details. Both Shia LaBeouf and producer Frank Marshall have recently confirmed that a film is in the works, and now, Insider's sources are saying that, "...filming will not start until next year, and it will not be released before 2011." Now, if you happen to be mathematically inclined, you might notice that Ford will be almost 70 by the time the film starts production, which would probably make for a slightly less 'active' Indy this time around.

I won't waste your time recounting all the ways that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a let-down for fans -- you know things are bad when an unflattering 'buzz-word' is created as a tribute. But maybe it's possible that a fifth film could correct some of those mistakes. Call me naive, but there is a very (and I mean, very) small part of me that thinks George Lucas and Steven Spielberg may have learned their lesson, and will go back to what made the original films so great. Maybe this time they could capitalize on the relationship between Indy and his son Mutt to try recapturing some of that Last Crusade vibe? But, I guess we can take comfort in the fact that no matter what those two come up with this time, it certainly couldn't get any worse than what was ... or can it?