saoirse ronan Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Eric Bana Will Be The Father of Assassin 'Hanna'
Filed under: Action », Independent », Thrillers », Casting », Focus Features », Newsstand »
I'm very intrigued by Hanna, Joe Wright's hitgirl film that starts his steely-eyed Atonement star, Saoirse Ronan. Even if it's a bit of a Leon / Kick-Ass story, Wright hasn't really let me down yet (though I never did see The Soloist -- maybe I speak too blindly), and Ronan is a force to be reckoned with. Now she's landed a brooding hunk of a costar, as Heat Vision reports that Eric Bana is in line to play her nemesis and father. Hanna centers around a 14-year-old Eastern European girl who is groomed by her father to be a cold-blooded killing machine. She finds a loving connection with an ordinary French family, but is dragged kicking and screaming (I imagine that's no hyperbole) back to her father's brutal world. She then discovers that she's one of many such killer children, born and bred in a CIA training camp. If she wants to be free, she's going to have to fight her way out. Cue the blood and brutality, I hope.
An actor who has never quite made it huge on this side of the Pacific, Bana seems to be destined for darker roles in Hollywood films. He's capable of very funny and very nuanced work. (Have you seen Romulus, My Father? If not, go rent it now.) I can't imagine Wright is going to give us a one-sided bad guy, and will let Bana play someone who is loving and cruel. Given the way he's bolstered so many British careers, maybe Wright and Hanna will be the film that launches Bana into a more respected stratosphere.
The Movieman's Oscar Nomination Predictions: Actor/Actress
Filed under: Awards », Oscar Watch »
The supporting actors and actresses have been broken down. Percentages are pretty high on at least eight of the ten predicted to be announced next Tuesday morning. With ten more available acting slots, there are potentially 17 performances in the running to grab them. Good luck to all of them since it has practically been decided who the winners will be already.
THE LOCKS
Since 1998, every winner of the Screen Actors Guild Awards have been nominated for an Oscar. That makes things pretty easy, don't it? Congratulations to Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) on their impending nominations. As with all, we will examine their chances to win the Oscar at a later date. Plenty of time for that. Since 2001, there have been 33 leading men and women who have been nominated from the following five groups: The BFCA, the Golden Globes, the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs. All 33 were nominated for an Oscar. This year there are five that fall into that illustrious category. One of them being Bridges. The other four are George Clooney (Up In The Air), Carey Mulligan (An Education), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)
THE LOCKS
Since 1998, every winner of the Screen Actors Guild Awards have been nominated for an Oscar. That makes things pretty easy, don't it? Congratulations to Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) on their impending nominations. As with all, we will examine their chances to win the Oscar at a later date. Plenty of time for that. Since 2001, there have been 33 leading men and women who have been nominated from the following five groups: The BFCA, the Golden Globes, the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs. All 33 were nominated for an Oscar. This year there are five that fall into that illustrious category. One of them being Bridges. The other four are George Clooney (Up In The Air), Carey Mulligan (An Education), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)
Inglourious Basterds At The Broadcast Film Critics Awards
Filed under: Awards », Oscar Watch »
"We put the 'F' in art." So said one of the 200+ members of the Broadcast Film Critics Association to kick off their televised awards show last year. It was a year after a large portion of the voting body went on stage to announce No Country For Old Men as Best Picture and then remain on stage while the producers tried to give their speech. If the credibility of their voting group hadn't been strained by a quick perusal through their online roster, any last ounce had to be squeezed out forever if you watched their desperate attempts at humor and to acclamate themselves as some serious collection of cinephiles. One by one the normally hidden faces of these junketeers appeared, interspersed with one of the leading quote sluts in the business, Shawn Edwards, who kept coming back to announce one of the other Best Picture candidates as his favorite. When your go to guy for comic relief is that guy, it makes total sense how you could nominate The Proposal for Best Comedy of the year. That's what happens when the people behind In The Loop don't fly them anywhere.
Saoirse Ronan Becomes Hanna the Hitgirl
Filed under: Action », Drama », Independent », Thrillers », Casting », Focus Features », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand »
The one thing I enjoyed about The Lovely Bones was Saoirse Ronan's performance. I hesitate to say that she's destined for greatness simply because that seems so loaded with disappointment or danger. But she's certainly a talented and lovely actress, and I'm eager to see what she does next. Her next role may be the one that really makes her a force to be reckoned with as The Hollywood Reporter says she'll be taking the lead in Hanna. Directed by Joe Wright (who is clearly loyal to his leading ladies), Hanna is the tale of an Eastern European teenager who is being trained as an assassin by her own father. As she suffers her training and growing pains, she becomes friendly with a French family and connects with their teenage daughter. But duty calls, and she's dragged back into her lethal life where she discovers she was bred in a CIA prison camp simply to be a killing machine. If she wants freedom, she'll have to fight for it.
The similarities to Kick-Ass and Leon have already been noted, though Focus Features is selling Seth Lochhead and David Farr's script as something more in line with La Femme Nikita and the Bourne films. It may sound derivative, but assassin movies inevitably are no matter if they center on a teenage girl, a hardbitten agent, or an adamantium-laced mutant. The hook here is Wright's lush visuals, and Ronan cutting loose as an action heroine. There's nothing about that combination that's yawn inducing, and I'll take teenage hitgirls over Hanna Montana any day.
Teens are the New Target for 'The Lovely Bones'
Filed under: Drama », Thrillers », Paramount », Distribution », Exhibition », Peter Jackson », Movie Marketing »
So far, Paramount's The Lovely Bones hasn't quite gotten the critical response expected from a film directed and written by a team of Oscar winners. Alice Sebold's dramatic novel about a raped and murdered teen watching from a sort of limbo as her family and friends wrestle with the unsolved crime while the culprit roams free was itself in limbo for several years. But despite the tumult, it seemed that Bones could still make the Oscar race, especially with Peter Jackson and his frequent collaborators Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh behind the screenplay, and a star-studded cast that includes Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan as the narrator, Susie Salmon. However, Bones didn't quite satisfy critics; it's at 38% over at Rotten Tomatoes, and Cinematical's own Elisabeth Rappe wrote in her review, "It's neither a faithful adaptation nor a daring reinvention of the material, and it's truly baffling why Jackson wanted to adapt it at all." The adults aren't buying it, but, much to Paramount's surprise, it looks like the movie's real audience could be young women.
The LA Times reports that "after test research on the movie, Paramount found there was a potentially hidden audience of females between 13 and 25." As someone who read and adored the book and was disappointed by the movie, this first struck me as somewhat puzzling, but the more I chewed on it, the more it makes sense. While some adults found that Jackson's CGI wonderland overshadowed the emotional complexities of the book, including its forthright treatment of Susie's budding desire, the conflict between justice and revenge, and the horror of her murder and rape, the movie was written by Jackson and Walsh "so that it would be watchable by their 13-year-old daughter." It's only logical, then, that that's the audience who would enjoy it most.
Cast & Crew Discuss 'The Lovely Bones'
Filed under: Peter Jackson », Interviews »
Despite the fact that show business is mostly a lot of make-believe, acting and directing in films is still a tough job, because it's not merely about a person pretending, but making an audience believe in some fictional, fantastical reality. Peter Jackson has excelled at that since his earliest days, and his aptitude for creating believable fantasy has only appreciated in recent years. In his latest film, an adaptation of Alice Sebold's acclaimed novel The Lovely Bones, he takes us on a journey with a girl who's stuck between this life and the next one, and convinces us that her efforts to escape and move on are compelling, even if they're not stricken from concrete reality.
Part of the film's success in doing this must be attributed to the actors in the film, including Saoirse Ronan, who plays Susie Salmon, as well as a supporting cast that includes Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, and Rose McIver. Cinematical recently spoke with the cast at the film's Los Angeles press day, where they discussed the challenges of bringing the film's transcendent but often tough subject matter to life.
Interview: Peter Jackson
Filed under: New Releases », Paramount », Fandom », Interviews »
Trying to figure out why people do what they do, even when you're interviewing them, can be a monumental task – as much for them as for you. Spirits are moved, muses are called upon, and in Hollywood, careers must often be maintained, but getting to the heart of what motivates filmmakers to take on challenges can be confounding because one suspects that it's not altogether different than what prods us in our daily lives – basic interest, casual discovery, or even arbitrary whim. Thankfully, however, with folks like Peter Jackson, there's almost enough information on how he does what he does that dissecting the reasons why seems redundant, or at least unnecessary.
Jackson's latest film is The Lovely Bones, an adaptation of Alice Sebold's acclaimed novel of the same name. Suffice it to say that the reasons precisely why this project would become his follow up to four of the biggest and most epic fantasy films ever made – the Lord of the Rings films, and a remake of King Kong – remain hovering somewhere in the ether; but Jackson's technical and artistic clarity at the film's recent press day leaves no mystery how he mounted a production of one of the year's most-anticipated films.
What were the challenges of adapting this? What did you have to leave out? And how much consideration was given to satisfying the fans as you determined what to keep and what to change or discard?
Review: The Lovely Bones
Filed under: Drama », New Releases », Paramount », Theatrical Reviews », Dreamworks », Peter Jackson »
I feel as though two directors inhabit Peter Jackson's body, and are fighting for dominance. One is the gifted visionary who made Middle Earth glimmer just so, and captured every emotional nuance hobbits, elves, and men could express. The other revels in slapstick and CGI and believes you can never have enough dinosaurs or dwarf jokes. Unfortunately, it's that Jackson who directed The Lovely Bones, and the film is littered with tonal missteps, outlandish effects, plot holes, thinly drawn characters, and an emotional immaturity that's utterly at odds with the story.
Based on Alice Sebold's bestselling novel, The Lovely Bones hovers around the spirit of Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan). In life, she's an ordinary girl, who loves photography, eyes cute boys, and has little time for Shakespeare. All that comes to a violent and grisly end at the hands of her neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). Unwilling to move on, Susie exists in the "In Between" a dreamy afterlife that's anything she wants it to be. Yet she yearns to return home, helplessly watching as her family grieves, and her killer walks free and unmolested.
The first scenes of Bones are excellent and haunting. Susie's murder is largely left to the imagination while we spend dinnertime with the Salmons. They bicker, laugh, and make their tardy child a pork chop plate. But normalcy and happiness is over and Susie's already gone, though they – and she -- don't know it. Her discovery of her own death is a fever dream of horror, chillingly effective and incredibly shot. Ronan plays it wonderfully too; she's not just Susie Salmon, she's your daughter, sister, or friend. You feel her loss keenly. But once Jackson takes Susie to heaven, the film loses its train of heartache.
Trailer for Peter Jackson's 'Lovely Bones' Looks Lovely Indeed
Filed under: Drama », Awards », Mystery & Suspense », Dreamworks », Steven Spielberg », Peter Jackson », Oscar Watch », Trailers and Clips »
Okay, so I might've just knocked Sandra Bullock for going after the Oscar gold, but here's The Lovely Bones, with a story I can get behind (Alice Sebold's best-selling tale of a young girl murdered and the aftermath she observes from the afterlife), a filmmaker I can get behind (Peter Jackson, scaling things back post-Lord of the Rings), an ensemble* I can get behind (Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, and the critically-cast Saoirse Ronan), and now a trailer I can get behind.Reading the novel earlier this year, I was struck by the simplest moments that captures almost too precisely how grief can change loved ones most unexpectedly, and while it seems that Jackson has certainly created a visually luscious realm for Ronan's character to inhabit and has retained the thrust of a somewhat supernatural murder mystery, part of what won me over was how Sebold's mystery took years to unfold, as the whole family comes to terms with the closure (or lack thereof) in their own personal ways.
If Jackson and company can balance the sprawling drama with the inherent whodunit (whydunit?) come December 11th, then The Lovely Bones could be lingering above all of the other contenders this coming awards season.
*I must confess a certain gratitude that Wahlberg replaced Ryan Gosling here. It's enough of an age difference to matter, let alone general temperament.
'The Lovely Bones' Has a Blank Poster
Filed under: Drama », Mystery & Suspense », Paramount », RumorMonger », Newsstand », Dreamworks », Peter Jackson », Movie Marketing », Religious », Images », Posters »
A bland teaser poster for The Lovely Bones has appeared on Film1 and, well, it's just not that exciting. No worries, though, this was only used to tease the film during an international trade show (CinemaExpo to be exact) -- hence the 2010 release date (it arrives stateside on December 11, 2009). But with the film due out this winter it's surprising that there's still so very little to go on.
Bones has been dogged by bad rumors from day one. Mark Wahlberg replaced Ryan Gosling in very short order, and Susan Sarandon had issues with her role as Grandma Lynn. Flicks.co.nz reported that production shut down as Peter Jackson and art director disagreed over how to best portray Heaven, a story that was later denied by DreamWorks and Paramount. The rumor machine really went into overdrive when the release date of the film was delayed by six months, but the studio also brushed off any concerns, assuring the world they had always intended to release the film December 11, 2009 ... just in time for awards consideration.
But hey, now you have a poster to go with those initial images, and it's the kind of marketing you can project all your wishes onto. You can read its blankness as a sign of a disorganized production that doesn't have its poster art sorted. You can read it as a sign that they're keeping it under wraps because it's something very special. Maybe you see your own version of heaven there. (Mine is a really good film.) It's all things to all people. Really!
[via Dread Central]
Bones has been dogged by bad rumors from day one. Mark Wahlberg replaced Ryan Gosling in very short order, and Susan Sarandon had issues with her role as Grandma Lynn. Flicks.co.nz reported that production shut down as Peter Jackson and art director disagreed over how to best portray Heaven, a story that was later denied by DreamWorks and Paramount. The rumor machine really went into overdrive when the release date of the film was delayed by six months, but the studio also brushed off any concerns, assuring the world they had always intended to release the film December 11, 2009 ... just in time for awards consideration.
But hey, now you have a poster to go with those initial images, and it's the kind of marketing you can project all your wishes onto. You can read its blankness as a sign of a disorganized production that doesn't have its poster art sorted. You can read it as a sign that they're keeping it under wraps because it's something very special. Maybe you see your own version of heaven there. (Mine is a really good film.) It's all things to all people. Really!
[via Dread Central]
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Girls on Film: Hollywood, Image, and Responsibility
SXSW: Snafu, Standing Ovation at the 'Elektra Luxx' Premiere
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