deborah kara unger Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Is it really fair to judge a movie by its trailer? Maybe not, but I've been a moviegoer long enough to know to trust my instincts. So after watching the trailer for the Mischa Barton thriller, Walled In, I am going to have to go with my gut and stay far away from this one.

Barton stars in the adaptation of the French novel Les Emmeures by Serge Broselot about a young demolition expert who is hired to raze a building that has one heck of a gruesome past. Unfortunately, the trailer makes the decision to give away most of the surprises (so if you are one of the 10 people who will see this movie I'm warning you now) and all the suspense thriller clichés are front and centre. Joining Barton for the spookiness are Deborah Kara Unger as the property's new owner, and Cameron Bright as Barton's friend who probably comes to a nasty end.

This just might be me, but it always seems like a desperate move on the part of a studio when they show an audience big chunks of a movie in hopes of drumming up some interest. One thing is for sure, Barton is never going to have that feature film career she always talked about if she keeps making movies like this.

Walled In is scheduled to arrive in theaters later this year.

[via The Movie Blog]

I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I have to say that whoever worked on the poster for Al Pacino's new thriller 88 Minutes did one heck of a job on photoshopping the 67-year-old actor -- the man doesn't look a day over 40. The Movie Insider now has the new poster for John Avnet's (Fried Green Tomatoes) film about a man who has the aforementioned 88 minutes to solve his own murder -- a plot that sounds a lot like the noir classic D.O.A, but with just enough differences to avoid a lawsuit.

Pacino plays Jack Gramm, a womanizing forensic psychiatrist and college professor. After testifying against a serial killer and putting him on death row, Gramm receives a phone call from the condemned killer, who tells him that he only has 88 minutes left to live. Gramm is then forced to re-visit the gruesome case in hopes of stopping a copycat and hopefully saving his own skin.

Joining Pacino are Leelee Sobieski, William Forsythe, Deborah Kara Unger, and Alicia Witt -- judging by the sheer number of chicks in the cast, I guess Pacino really is a ladies man in this flick. The script was written by Gary Scott Thompson, who was also the writer for 2 Fast 2 Furious and Hollow Man II. I have to be honest with you; those two credits alone are enough to make me think that this movie might not be up to Pacino's usual standards -- although lately it seems like those have been slipping ever so slightly as well. 88 Minutes hits theaters on April 18th.

When Mischa Barton was unceremoniously killed off the teen soap, The OC; I think most of us thought this was her chance to transform her teen stardom into a successful movie career. So far that hasn't happened, and I personally doubt her latest role is going to do anything to change that. Variety reports Barton has signed to star in the psychological thriller Walled In. The story centers on "a demolition company rep who supervises the razing of a mysterious building and discovers horrifying secrets and past inhabitants entombed within its walls by a vicious murderer". Based on the French novel Les Emmeures by Serge Broselot, Barton will play the demolition company rep -- and is it just me, but when you think commercial demolition and construction, someone who looks like Barton doesn't exactly come to mind?

Joining Barton are Deborah Kara Unger (Silent Hill) and Cameron Bright (Juno -- you can catch Scott's TIFF review of that film here) and set to direct is French helmer Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Gomez and Tavare). This will be the first English-language feature for Brenner, who also helped adapt the novel for the screen. Barton has been piling on the projects lately, having signed for the caper film St. Trinian's back in May and she also just finished the drama Finding t.A.T.u. Barton is still hard at work on the high school comedy Assassination of a High School President with Bruce Willis. Walled In is a French-Canadian co-production and is scheduled to start shooting on October 22nd, in the most glamorous of all Canadian locations: Saskatchewan (believe me, it's funnier if you are a Canadian).

Since Silent Hill will soon become the 439th film of past six months that was not screened for critics, we're all going to have to get our pre-release glimpses of it from unconventional sources (mmm ... the internet). Happily, at least for people who want to see the movie, the first 10 minutes -- once aired on MTV, apparently -- have shown up online, so you can at least get a sense of the film's tone. As you might expect, I'm afraid to watch it, but based on deeply creepy (yet not cheesy) previews and the presence of star Deborah Kara Unger and writer Roger Avary (not to mention the absence of Mr. Uwe Boll), Silent Hill seems to have lot more going for it than most video game movies.

The movie hits theaters this weekend, so even if you're too lazy to sit and watch the clip, you still haven't got long to wait.

[via Movies Online]

There is no English-speaking actress better suited to star in a Southern Gothic film than Deborah Kara Unger. Her odd, exotic face - high cheekbones, narrow eyes, and features that seem foreign to one another - gives an air of strangeness to even the most mundane of moments, while her carriage more often than not creates a dramatic gulf between herself and the viewer. It is appropriate, then, that her character occupies the center of Things That Hang from Trees, the debut feature from American-born, Israeli-raised, Ido Mizrahy; the director relies very strongly on the strangeness of his star for the film’s power.

Unger plays Connie Mae Wheeler, a single mother in St. Augustine, Florida whose reliance on a purse full of pharmaceuticals only increases her distance from the world. Half-heartedly raising a young son, Tommy, (ably played by Cooper Musgrove), Connie Mae spends most of her time either working in her lingerie shop or posing in its window, acting as a mannequin. Tommy, meanwhile, is in a world of his own for a variety of reasons including his mother’s aloofness, childhood trauma, and what appears to be slight mental retardation - those in St. Augustine who care for him prefer to call him “quiet,” or “simple.” Though precious little really happens in Things That Hang from Trees, Tommy’s desire to watch the annual fireworks display alone, from the top of the town lighthouse, gives it what passes for a plot.