armin mueller-stahl Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: The International
Filed under: Action », Thrillers », Sony », Theatrical Reviews »
It never fails to impress me, the number of indie filmmakers who come around to crank out big-budget affairs within years of landing on the Hollywood scene. Striking while the iron's hot is one thing, but if you popped up after I pushed stop on a VHS copy of Swingers and told me that same director would also be responsible for not just one, but two high-gloss spy thrillers (The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith), I'd probably be more than a little skeptical (not to mention concerned as to who you were and what you were doing there). Similarly, if you stopped me immediately after viewing Following or Memento and insisted that this very same lot would soon reboot the Batman franchise to record-breaking success, I'd probably grin politely and begin to eye my exits.
My point is, it's been very close to a decade since director Tom Tykwer made a distinct impression with the fast life and loud sounds of his calling card, Run Lola Run, and to see him helming a Clive Owen-Naomi Watts espionage thriller like The International proves that much more unique when one considers how admirably straight-forward and strait-laced the end result is in comparison, to both his own work and that of others.
Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Early Kudos
Filed under: Brad Pitt », Harry Potter », Oscar Watch », Columns », 400 Screens, 400 Blows », Cinematical Indie »
It may be a bit early for this, but I wanted to get my two cents in on some of my favorite performances of 2007 so far, especially since most of these will probably get overlooked in the great Oscar crush of December. The awards almost always go to actors who are involved in biopics, message pictures, costume movies or epics, so let's start with the wonderful Alan Rickman, who has yet to earn a single Oscar nomination. This year, he can be seen toiling away once again in the small role of Severus Snape in the fifth "Harry Potter" film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (283 screens). In the third film, he practically stole the entire movie with the way he read the line "turn to page 394," but in this fifth film, he actually has a scene with some meat to it. In training Harry to block his thoughts, Harry takes a peek into Snape's own mind and finds a disastrously sad childhood. When the flashback ends, the camera lingers on Snape's face for a moment, and Rickman renders an astonishing expression of hurt and hatred that broke my heart and sent chills through my spine.
One costume movie, Becoming Jane (32 screens), was unfairly judged, perhaps because it was too much fun and not somber enough (or not based on a literary source of proper merit). The lovely Miss Anne Hathaway usually lends a kind of smart energy to her best performances, as if she were slightly ahead of the game, and she does so perfectly as the budding Jane Austen. She's playful, but tough, beautiful but restrained. And when she falls in love with her man (James McAvoy), she does so breathlessly and with her whole heart; the movie more or less explains through fantasy how Austen was able to write so passionately from such a dull existence. The real Jane was said to be rather plain, but I'd much rather imagine her like this. Add to this Maggie Smith's delightfully wry supporting performance as the wealthy aunt, who can't understand the impudent youth of today and fires off comically nasty barbs at their expense.
Berlin jury announced
Filed under: Awards », Berlin », Newsstand », Steven Spielberg »
Well, no one can accuse the people at the Berlin Film
Festival for being conservative: according to The Guardian, this year's jury "will include a veteran
Bollywood producer, a renowned cinematographer and an artist with a fixation on the muscle that controls testicular
contractions." Doesn't that just roll right off the tongue?The men described above are, in turn, Yash Chopra, Janusz Kaminski, who has won two Oscars for his work with Steven Spielberg, and the talented, unpredicatable Matthew Barney (you know, the guy with with the whale movie). Joining that trio are five other panelists who continue the trend towards diversity: South Korean actor Lee Yeong-ae, Charlotte Rampling (who will serve as the Jury's chair), actor Armin Mueller-Stahl, Fred Roos (whose productions range from Apocalypse Now to Lost in Translation), and Dutch director Marleen Gorris. This is possibly the greatest jury of all time - what a great mix of ages, backgrounds, specialities, and interests. I can't wait to see what this crew comes up with when the time comes to hand out the awards on February 18.
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