gael garcia bernal Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Be still my Shakespearian heart. Yes, I've written about ol' Will a lot lately, and now it's time for more, although with this round, the Bard is providing the inspiration rather than the story. Variety reports that Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Franco Nero will star in Letters to Juliet, an adaptation of Lise and Ceil Friedman's book. (Not to be confused with this Juliet-inspired project.)

Riffing on the book, which talks about Verona and the multitude of people who write letters to Juliet in care of the city, the story will follow a couple (Seyfriend and Garcia Bernal) who vacation in Italy and mistakenly get one of these letters. Written by Redgrave's character, the letter recounts her memories of being romanced during a trip to the country long ago. Inspired, Seyfried heads to Tuscany to find the woman's lost love (Nero). Man, she likes playing Cupid. Anyone want to make bets about how long it will take for her to star in a film AS Cupid?

The project was adapted by Jose Rivera (Motorcycle Diaries and the upcoming On the Road) and Tim Sullivan, and will be directed by Gary Winick, the man behind Tadpole, 13 Going on 30, Charlotte's Web, and Bride Wars. I'm not sure what that will mean for this film -- fluffy romance, something more gritty, a little bit of both? -- but I do like the idea. Production begins in Italy on June 25.

A man with no name sits down at an outdoor cafe and orders two espressos in separate cups. A flock of birds gently take flight. A helicopter briefly whirls overhead. The man sips espresso. Silence. Calm.

A man with no name sits down at an outdoor cafe and orders two espressos in separate cups. A flock of birds gently take flight. A helicopter briefly whirls overhead. The man sips espresso. Silence. Calm. He is approached by another person, who sits down. The other person says "You don't speak Spanish, right?" The other person says something more, in Spanish or in another language. The man removes a matchbox from his pocket. The other person places a matchbox with the same design, but a different color, on the table. The matchboxes are exchanged. The other person says something more, and leaves. The man opens the newly-exchanged matchbox, takes out a tiny piece of paper, unfolds it, reads the coded, hand-written message on it, puts it in his mouth, and swallows it along with another sip of espresso.

A man with no name sits down at an outdoor cafe ...

So goes Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control, the perfect summer movie for people who prefer museums to amusement parks. Wearing a multitude of enigmas on its well-coifed sleeve, the film is cool, dark, mysterious, and altogether refreshing. Isaach De Bankolé plays The Man With No Name (actually identified as "Lone Man" in the credits), and if that moniker calls forth memories of Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, so much the better, though Lone Man's espressos, matchboxes, and chastity place him firmly within the realm of post-modern masculinity.

Click image below to enlarge

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Rudo Y Cursi, which recently premiered back in January at the Sundance Film Festival and will hit theaters this May courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. Written and directed by Carlos Cuarón (brother of Alfonso Cuarón) and starring Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal (who reunite here after co-starring in Y tu mamá también), Rudo Y Cursi follows the story of two rival siblings inside the world of professional soccer.

The film, which marks the first from Cha Cha Cha Films (Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Alfonso Cuarón) has already scored box office records when it opened in Mexico earlier this year, while watching its fantastic soundtrack (which includes a Cheap Trick cover performed by Bernal) top the charts. CHUD's Devin Faraci says from Sundance: "Rudo Y Cursi is charming and fun, but never slight. The film gives a vibrant and real-feeling look into a slice of life in Mexico and into the world of soccer, a game that comes across as wild, political and sometimes more than a little nuts."

Rudo Y Cursi hits theaters in limited release on May 8. Click below to view the full poster.

Click image below to view full poster

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for The Limits of Control, which premiered a bizarre-yet-intriguing trailer the other day and comes from acclaimed director Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Broken Flowers, Ghost Dog). Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Gael Garcia Bernal and John Hurt (not a bad cast if you ask me), The Limits of Control follows a mysterious loner (and criminal) who's in the process of completing a job. Not a whole lot to go on there, but the best kept secrets are the ones that are, well, best kept secret.

Also, the music in the film is getting a lot of buzz; the Japanese trip Boris wrote and performed most of the songs, while Jarmusch wrote and performed -- along with Carter Logan (drums, percussion) and Shane Stoneback (carillon, organ) -- the music in the trailer. (Read more about that here.) The film marks the fourth time Jarmusch has collaborated with De Bankolé, not to mention the other cast members who've found themselves drifting through a Jarmusch flick at some point. Really looking forward to this one; the film hits theaters on May 22. Check out the full poster by clicking the image below.

I regret to say that I don't feel that I've seen enough of Jim Jarmusch's work to determine whether or not I'm a capital-f Fan, but I do know that I do like what I have seen -- namely, Broken Flowers, much of Coffee and Cigarettes, and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

That last title seems to be the one to which his new film, The Limits of Control, merits the most comparison, if this new trailer (watch at Apple or below) is any indication. This time, though, our stoic assassin (Isaach De Bankole) has a bit more of an ensemble to work with on the streets of Spain, including Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael Garcia Bernal and melonfarmin' Bill Murray.

Normally, I'd be put off by the hipper-than-thou fortune-cookie banter we're treated to here, but I've got a feeling that there might be more than meets the eye (namely, the other 98 minutes of the movie), and speaking of 'meets the eye,' it certainly never hurts when cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Hero) is lensing your latest.

The Limits of Control goes into limited release on May 1st.

I was beginning to think that Martin Scorsese was on a merry-go-round of music and organized mayhem, since he's been quite busy balancing crime with big-screen concert-going. But just as it looks like he's in a rut, Scorsese throws us something from left field. Well, not quite left field since we heard about it back in 2006, but close enough.

Variety reports that he's "determined" to make Silence next. Based on the Japanese novel, the film will follow a few Jesuit priests who head to Japan in the name of Christianity, only to discover that converts are being persecuted in defiance of Western influence. Marty has been sitting on this sucker for eons (he wrote a script of the Japanese novel ten years ago), and was set to film it in Vancouver in 2007. But now it's headed to New Zealand (Canada, sheep land, same difference?!), and Marty is negotiating with Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio Del Toro to star, with Gael Garcia Bernal also entering talks.

I've been itching to see what he'd make of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, but you can't blame a guy for getting a decade-old project into gear, especially when you've got Daniel and Benicio ready to star. But will it still have "implications related to the war in Iraq"? And how will he fare on "Japanese" turf?

While the big-screen adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera could not, unfortunately, live up to the text's expectations, the famous writer is getting another shot. This time, however, it's an old screenplay. The Guardian reports that Mexican actor and producer Rodolfo de Anda says that he has picked up the rights to a screenplay written by the author over 40 years ago.

Titled Frontera, the script follows "an ageing pistolero and his much younger partner." De Anda says that he heard about the screenplay years ago, but assumed that it was written by Alcoriza. When he bought the rights "about a month ago, I discovered the surprise that the story was not in fact by Alcoriza, but by Gabriel García Márquez." "Nobody knew it existed, and the most surprising thing is that it is a Western." De Anda says he will take on the role of the older partner, and is, not surprisingly, thinking of casting one of the two Y tu mamá también stars -- Gael García Bernal or Diego Luna -- as the young sidekick.

It's not an adaptation of a translation, so hopefully this will fare better than the last Gabriel offering. But which of the two young stars would you pick for the feature -- Gael or Diego?

UPDATE: Here's the trailer in Quicktime quality.

Of all the films I'm looking forward to this fall, Blindness ranks fairly high up there. Canadian distributor Alliance has just made available a full trailer that proves to be fairly intriguing, as an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his seemingly immune wife (Julianne Moore) cope with an inexplicable epidemic of sight loss.

I'm a sucker for most anything vaguely apocalyptic, and while this very well could turn out to be akin to watching the first act of Children of Men through a milk-filled mask (which I've done, mind you), the prestige behind the project* says otherwise. We have acclaimed screenwriter Don McKellar adapting Nobel-Laureate José Saramago's novel, with Academy Award nominee Fernando Meirelles directing a cast that also includes Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga, and Sandra Oh.

I must say, going off that taste and last spring's teaser, I still like the look, sound, and feel of this one, especially Moore's little retort (you know the one), and that's not to mention that any trailer which employs John Murphy's underrated score from last year's Sunshine to set a rightfully ominous tone is always fine by me. We'll get to see (sorry) what trials and tribulations await the world on September 19th.

*Not to mention Rocchi's review of the film from its Cannes world premiere.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Blindness (click to enlarge), which enjoyed its world premiere as the opening night film of this year's Cannes Film Festival back in May. Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal, Blindness tells of a city overcome by a blindness epidemic where its citizens are stricken with instant "white blindness." As folks are quarantined off in an abandoned mental hospital, one woman who remains unaffected pretends to be sick in order to take care of her husband, a doctor, who's now blind. Based on Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, and directed by the very talented Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Blindness definitely looks to bring the creep factor -- and with this outstanding cast, I'm sure it will claim a spot as this fall's first great flick.

Don't close your eyes for too long, because Blindness hits theaters on September 19.

I sat in on a roundtable luncheon for the film Blindness the other day; as far as roundtables go, it was a nice affair; there were four tables of journalists, and they rotated the talent through the tables, giving us about 15 minutes with each set. It's always interesting to me to talk to the actors and filmmaker about a film like this; it gives you a different perspective that you have from just watching the film.

A word of caution: There are spoilers in these interviews about certain aspects of the film, but I'm including them because they provide a good deal of context about the film and the motivations of the characters. If you prefer to go into seeing the film blind, as it were, you'll not want to read this until after you've seen it. If you do want to learn more about the film, the interview writeup is after the jump ...