BradPitt Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I'll always remember David Fincher's Se7en for a few different reasons (I even had to write an essay once about the opening credits) but the number one reason this film sticks in my brain is John Doe. Now usually when it comes to on-screen villains, you tend to remember the big personalities. In the words of Buffy, "strait up, black hat, tied to the train tracks, soon my electro-ray will destroy Metropolis," types. But as scary as the big bad wolf can be, sometimes the evil you never see coming is the one that becomes the stuff of nightmares.

In Fincher's thriller about a serial killer with a penchant for Dante and the wrath of god, we don't even get to see the bad guy until about half way through the movie. But when Doe (played to perfection by Kevin Spacey) calmly walks into the police station to hand himself over, you know that this is not your run of the mill psycho. Recently I took a look at some movie villains that manage to win you over with a little charm and charisma, and Doe definitely isn't one of those guys. He's the kind of guy you would cross the street to avoid, but only if you got to know him -- and that's what makes him scary, he is completely average. Instead of letting the audience get used to the idea of him, we only see his handiwork (as gruesome as it may be), and just like Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman), we are just witnesses to the aftermath.

After the jump; Why Doe still scares the crap out of me, and his horrible plan is made complete...

Adjust your calenders, and don't hold your breath for Terrence Malick. (If you ever hold your breath for Malick, that is. His latest opus, The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn,was given a tentative release date of December 25, 2009. But it won't be making that date, according to Apparition Films' Bob Berney. Thompson on Hollywood caught up with Berney, who said the date was "wishful" thinking, and that the film will not be released in 2009.

Why the delay? If you know Malick at all, you know the answer to that. The film is not yet finished. The Tree of Life has already been a 30-year journey for Malick, and another year (or two, or three) won't make any difference to the notoriously meticulous director. No one has even seen the film, or knows what form its final cut will take. All that's really known about the movie is that it's a family drama that spans the 1950s and deals with the loss of innocence.

Apparition Films remains optimistic that you'll see the film in 2010. It won't make Sundance, but it's likely to make Cannes. (That is the film festival that belongs to Pitt and Angelina Jolie, so fate would dictate that's where it would premiere!) But even that is up in the air, as Berney admits he has no idea when the film will be finished, or when it will be released.

Brad Pitt had a whole lot of gigs before he nabbed his career-propulsioning role in Thelma & Louise -- from an uncredited preppie kid in Less Than Zero, to the soap opera wonder of Another World and Dallas, to sitcoms like Growing Pains. He's an actor whose notoriety rose with his talents -- he paid his dues and worked his way up from goofy commercial gigs shilling Pringles to big-screen success. But what if he never got to play with Thelma and Louise?

See, Pitt was the third choice for the role. According to IMDb, William Baldwin was the first choice, but he gave it up to star in Backdraft. (George Clooney also lobbied hard for the gig.) The choice makes sense. Why play some bit part when you can star in a Ron Howard flick with Kurt Russell, Robert De Niro, and Donald Sutherland? If only the sensible always made sense... Alas, you don't hear people still talking about Baldwin's firefighting, you hear about the sexy robber known as J.D.

Backdraft didn't kickstart Baldwin's career, and while it hasn't tanked like, say, Stephen's, it hasn't been the greatest for a guy who had Brad Pitt grabbing his cast-offs. One of Baldwin's biggest recent gigs -- the partner TV show cop in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But what if he stuck with the original gig and rocked it as well? Would it have led from Johnny Suede to A River Runs Through It, Interview with the Vampire, and ultimately, Se7en? No doubt Pitt would've still found his way, but would it have been different enough that Baldwin would've grabbed some of those early gigs and more long-lasting fame?

Earlier this summer, reshoot rumors were thick around Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. One of the more believable ones was that Brad Pitt was stepping in to make an appearance as Moriarty, though it was clouded in so much "Pitt must save Ritchie!" hyperbole that it was almost impossible to believe. As always, there seems to have been some truth to the tabloid rumors, because The Hollywood Reporter says Warner Bros is already prepping more Holmes, and Pitt is in talks to play the detective's legendary adversary, Moriarty.

While neither Ritchie, Pitt, or producer Joel Silver will comment on whether Pitt already makes a shadowy appearance in the upcoming film. Those who have read the script say that Moriarty does appear, but is all mysterious and silhouetted, and it's impossible to see who he really is.

As Pitt debates whether or not he wants to pit brainpower and martial arts against the elementary Robert Downey Jr., the studio has brought on Kieran and Michele Mulroney, the team behind their Justice League: Mortal project to pen the script. Though nothing is official yet, THR notes "much of the talent," notably Downey, Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, and Ritchie are expected to return. (Mark Strong isn't mentioned. Spoiler or no surprise?) It's worth noting that if Pitt signs on and the line-up remains as is, there's only one native Brit in the entire cast of this very English classic.

In what could be read as a big "nyah, told you so" press release, The Weinstein Company would like you all to know that Inglourious Basterds has not only grossed over $108M* in North America but has now out-earned Pulp Fiction, which was previously Tarantino's biggest money-maker to date.

But what's strange is that TWC is giving some of the credit to "an innovative marketing plan. The film was the first to make use of Twitter and other social networking sites in such a direct fashion, even involving Twitter in the film's LA premiere," according to the press release.

Harvey Weinstein is even quoted as saying, "It was great working with Biz Stone at Twitter on Inglourious. It took the campaign to another level."

Okay, what have I missed? How was the Inglourious campaign different from any other of the studios' use of Twitter or Facebook to promote movies through links, contests, and meet-ups? I don't even recall seeing anything on Twitter about it, other than the normal studios using Twitter to cross-pollinate coverage.

Starting with a gobsmacked VHS screening of Reservoir Dogs way back in '92, I've seen every Quentin Tarantino movie dozens upon dozens of times, but Inglourious Basterds is the first I will have seen only once before writing about it. Like the absolute best entries cinema history has to offer, his work demands repeat viewing, as much to catch all the in-jokes, references and homages as to see their cumulative, strikingly original impact. All of which is why I can only try to sufficiently deconstruct, classify and characterize Tarantino's latest, a wartime opus whose shortcomings upon first viewing are as immediately recognizable as the fact they will after many more of them prove to be virtues, ultimately creating a singular tribute to WWII movies done in the writer-director's signature, genre-bending style.

While the star of the film is really the story, there are three characters who cement together Inglourious Basterds' unwieldy but surprisingly even-weighted chapters. First, there's Colonel Landa (Christoph Waltz), a Nazi officer who earned the nickname "the Jew hunter" thanks to his indefatigable, shoe-leather-and-shark's-grin persistence. Next, there's Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), one of Landa's few targets who escaped, who lives under an assumed name and manages a French cinema. And then there's Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), an American soldier who recruits a rabid team of Jews to hunt down Nazis and strike fear with their exploits.

Hollywood has cooked up a new twist. This may not be in league with Javier Bardem being replaced by actress Carmen Maura in a gig, but it's still surprising. Variety reports that DreamWorks has lined up its voice talent for 2010's Oobermind -- Robert Downey Jr.'s lead baddie has been replaced by Will Ferrell, and he'll be joined by Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill (not to mention Tina Fey, who signed on earlier).

The satire focuses on a big-noggined supervillain called Oobermind. He has defeated his hero rival Metro Man (Pitt), and finds post-hero-fighting life to be boring. So he creates a new superhero called Titan (Hill), to fight. Only this dude wants to be a bad guy as well, which forces Oobermind to switch sides himself. (Can you spot all the Venture Brothers similarities?) Fey, meanwhile, voices a reporter trying to keep up with the many superhero/villain changes.

Switching from Downey Jr. to Ferrell is sure to have a big impact on the film. You've got RDJ, who can be delightfully evil and would surely offer a textured and intriguing villain, and then Ferrell, who may have proved his range with gigs like Stranger Than Fiction, but still tends to offer that same blissed-out cluelessness that made him famous. DreamWorks is planning to release Oobermind in the fall of 2010, as part of a cinematic push to make up for Monsters vs. Aliens performance, but I wonder: Can Ferrell deliver the goods, and make up for Downey Jr.'s departure?

If I know Cinematical readers, I know you'd like an early taste of Inglourious Basterds, even if you had to read it and are you in luck today! Quentin Tarantino handed Playboy Magazine a Nazi killing scene, and the picture-friendly magazine handed it to R.M. Guera. The result is six pages, and only six, of a Basterds graphic novel. Unfortunately, the flash player Playboy housed it in is really clunky, and would be impossible to navigate beyond six pages.

To those of you who read the script, this won't be anything new. If you're like me and know nothing of the film beyond trailers, tv spots, and the joyful whoops of your friends on Twitter, then this will be fresh and unusual. It will also be a little nightmarish because dang, could Guera have made Eli Roth and Brad Pitt any more scary looking?

If you want to see the film unspoiled, avoid it, but if you want to see just where that scene of Roth, his baseball hat, and a Nazi's skull originates and leads to, read on. It's fun stuff, and makes me wish Tarantino would borrow a page from Joss Whedon, and do a few comic books that run with all his intertwined characters and Red Apple cigarettes. While I certainly don't want an origin story for Stuntman Mike or Bill, we might finally get all those side stories or leaps into the future he constantly teases us about.

[via The Beat]

He is, basically, the antithesis of a Comic-Con filmmaker, more interested in infusing celluloid with his personal vision than with dazzling moviegoers through visual effects. Not that director Steven Soderbergh is adverse to using advanced technology, or sprinkling computerized wizardry upon the narrative like fairy dust, or including breathless action sequences in his films. Quite to the contrary. Ocean's Thirteen, for example, fairly bursts with playful touches of meta-reality, from handwritten monetary sums dancing around a wide shot of unexpected casino winners to 60s-style split-screen montages, and contains a breathless series of escapades in which no one pulls a gun -- it's all talk.

Thus, it was distressing to hear that Soderbergh spoke with an "air of tired resignation" in an telephone conversation with The Guardian UK a while back. He said he could "see the end" of his career, with just "three or four years worth of stuff" that he hopes to be able to do, and then he "may just disappear." He now wishes he hadn't made the subtle and powerful Che; the production was so intense that he and everyone else "got scarred ... a little bit."

It's understandable that the physical demands of making Che -- the equivalent of two feature-length films -- on a 76-day schedule for the comparatively small sum of $58 million would exhaust anybody. And it may be that the last-minute script disagreements that resulted in his losing the Moneyball baseball flick gig with Brad Pitt were laying him low as well. Some people are angry at him for indulging himself and ignoring the audience, somehow squandering opportunities for other directors to make "smart movies for adults."

Nearly two months ago, a homemade bomb exploded outside a Starbucks coffee shop in Manhattan, causing property damage but not injuring anyone. The bomber was finally arrested yesterday, and now the police are saying that the alleged teenage bomber "was launching his own 'Project Mayhem,'" reports The New York Times, "referring to a plan hatched by the protagonist of Fight Club, played by Brad Pitt, to sabotage corporations by destroying property."

The accused, 17-year-old, Kyle Shaw, "had started an underground fight club modeled on the one in the film, [Police Commissioner Raymond W.] Kelly said, and had bragged to friends that he was behind the bombing." A search of Shaw's home turned up news clippings about the explosion, a box of sparklers -- the bomb was reportedly constructed from fireworks explosives, a plastic bottle, and electrical tape -- and a DVD of Fight Club. A former high school classmate remembers that Shaw "wanted to watch the movie in our English class in the 11th grade. We were discussing existentialism in class, and he suggested we watch the movie as an example. We ended up watching I Heart Huckabees."

Based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk and directed by David Fincher, the 1999 film also starred Edward Norton. It would be easy to say that if Shaw was really a fan, he should have remembered the first and second rules of Fight Club. But even before that, he should have remembered: it's only a movie.