Tag: Toni Collette

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Watch The First Trailer For ‘Stowaway’ Starring Anna Kendrick And Toni Collette

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Are you ready for a new Netflix sci-fi movie? You better be, ’cause ‘Stowaway‘ is coming in hot.

The streaming giant released the first trailer for the film, which stars Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette and Daniel Dae Kim.

In the Joe Penna-directed feature, an unintended stowaway accidentally causes severe damage to a spaceship’s life support systems on a mission headed to Mars. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially fatal outcome, the crew is forced to make an impossible decision.

Penna seems to have a thing for the survivalist genre, as he recently directed Mads Mikkelsen in the adventure/thriller, Arctic. In that movie, a man gets stranded in the Arctic after a plane crash.

By the way, ‘Arctic’ got rave reviews from critics and worked on a budget of just $2 milion.

I’ll be interested to see how he performs with a bigger budget and a larger cast.

The movie is expected to drop on Netflix on April 22. Check out the trailer below…

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Toni Collette Set To Make Directorial Debut With Film Adaptation Of Novel ‘Writers And Lovers’

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If it feels like every actor dreams of being a director, well, that’s probably because most do.

The latest actor to enter the world of directing is Toni Collette. The Oscar-nominated actress will make her feature directorial debut with an adaptation of Lily King’s bestselling novel, Writers And Lovers.

The novel, which was released back in 2020, follows a character by the name of Casey Peabody…

An underemployed, aspiring novelist in 1990’s Boston whose world is rocked by a recent love affair and her mother’s sudden death. Her life becomes more complicated as she then falls for two very different men at the same time.

Collette will also serve as producer and co-writer. She’ll be working on the script with Nick Payne.

She released the following statement:

I have been wanting to direct for quite some time but have been a bit busy with my day job. l couldn’t be more thrilled to be bringing Lily King’s beautiful, funny, moving novel to life. It’s an empowering story that speaks to me as a woman and an artist. It’s ultimately about coming to know and believe in oneself.

No word on a potential release date, but we’ll keep you posted.

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Jessie Buckley Set To Replace Brie Larson In Upcoming Charlie Kaufman Netflix Film

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Charlie Kaufman just might be one of my favorite living screenwriters. He’s created beautiful films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. His movies aren’t just entertaining, they’re something else entirely…something foreign to the human brain.

Back in December of last year, we told you that Brie Larson and Jesse Plemons were set to star in Kaufman’s upcoming Netflix film, which is based on the 2016 novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things.

Now it’s being reported that Larson was forced to drop out of the project due to scheduling issues. She’s busy being a superhero now, you know?

According to the reports, Irish singer/actress Jessie Buckley will replace Larson in the flick. She will be joined by Plemons, Toni Collette and David Thewlis.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things follows Jake (Plemons), a man going on a road trip to meet his parents on their secluded farm with his girlfriend (Buckley), who is thinking of terminating their relationship. When Jake makes an unexpected detour leaving her stranded, a twisted mix of palpable tension, psychological frailty, and sheer terror ensues.

No word on a release date, but we will keep you posted.

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Movie Review: Krampus (2015) – Buried Under The Clutter Is A Watchable Movie.

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Krampus is an unusual Christmas movie, with a horror flair. While not entirely unwatchable, it suffers from amateurish direction and overdone CGI work.

The premise is this. A dysfunctional family’s constant fighting causes the youngest child, Max (Emjay Anthony) to lose his Christmas spirit. As a result, a deadly demon, Krampus, attacks the family with a ton of holiday themed monsters. The family members, including mom (Toni Collette), dad (Adam Scott), sister (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Max need to work together to survive the holidays.

So it’s a unique crossover premise. The last pure horror Christmas movie I saw was Silent Night, Deadly Night, and if that’s the only thing to compare Krampus to, then Krampus deserves an academy award. But as a fantasy/horror, stacked up against other offerings, it fails.

I will aid that failure has nothing to do with the cast. Honestly, with such a heavy comic cast, I was expecting to not buy the premise, but they really did make me buy it. I think their work was well done.

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The problems came with the editing, and direction, and overdone CGI. The movie doesn’t have even pacing. One minute it’s building up, and then the next, it’s exploding with an attack from just about every Christmas based monster you can think of, from evil trolls to gingerbread men. At that point, it’s near impossible to know where to look. There’s way too much going on at once. It comes off as disjointed over scary and fails to deliver on fear.

It’s cluttered to the point where it feels like the director has ADHA. I could practically hear him screaming “more gingerbread men, more monsters, more, more, more…screw it, add the Easter bunny!”

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I will say it was a clever idea. The story is based off of folklore and I’m surprised no one did it before. It started off as a movie with lofty ambitions, that easily could be franchised. It just feels like there was too much crammed into the premise, despite the fact that the storyline is relatively simple.

One thing that really brought this movie off to such a strong lead is its competition. Other than Victor Frankenstein, there’s really no other movie in the same competitive niche, so the release date was perfectly timed. If I had to choose between Krampus and Victor Frankenstein, I’d totally go with Krampus.

The score was well done, featuring some Christmas favorites that add a bit of a festive flair, while not going too heavy on the Jingle Bells. It was an understated, but appropriate score for the movie. Even the CGI was visually stunning, it was just poorly timed. Too much going on at once really pulled the pin out of a movie that could have been great.

Buried under the clutter is a watchable movie. It’s just that you’ll likely have a hard time to knowing where to look when the action scenes start. That being said, it’s still worth checking out. Take a chance and take out the family. At the very least, it will put them in a Christmas mood.

WE GAVE IT : 3 STARS! Watch the Official Trailer and See the Official Movie Poster below

stars

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Movie Review: Box Trolls (2014) – Intelligent Animation with an Adorable Weirdness

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The Box Trolls have been creeping me out since I was a child, which is why I was hesitant to see them. But as a parent, I feel responsible to review other children’s movies that I think parents might be dragged in too. It is my duty as a reviewer… no matter how much those friggen things might haunt my nightmares.

In this twisted horror movie, an innocent orphan boy named Egg is raised by a family of terrifying monsters made out of cardboard. Ok, so that’s my personal bias shining through. I can’t help it, these things really used creep me out. I don’t know why. When I was a kid, the book that this was based on, “Here Be Monsters” by Alan Snow was enough to give me nightmares for a week.

But something amazing happened when this came to the big screen. I no longer found the Box Trolls terrifying. In fact, they were surprisingly charming. The characters are almost something out of a Dickens novel, with the added weirdness that is simply adorable.

This team of editors had their work cut out for them and they did an admiral job. The stop-motion animation is completely fantastic. This weird, colorful world is creative, interesting and based on reality without being too realistic. Think along the lines of Nightmare Before Christmas in it’s strange, stop-motion take on an alternate universe.

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Even the names of the characters are clever. The troll names are made of the things they’re made up of like Fish, Shoe, Oil Can, Egg, etc. They have a cheese based economy. It’s pretty much child centric world building at its best.

The story is well done and intriguing enough for adults with some potential digs at certain political parties. From Mr. Gristle (Tracy Morgan) who is using the Box Trolls as scapegoats to further his own political career, to the evil Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley) who is intent on exterminating every last one of them, the bag guys are nefarious and surprisingly familiar.

This is one of those rare finds that’s actually enjoyable for adults as well. While it might be a bit scary for younger viewers, it’s still a fun, cute movie with a fish out of water twist.

Most enjoyable is Egg, the human adopted by the Box Trolls who really has no idea how humans interact with each other. Watching him trying to get along in the human world is sweet and hysterical.

It’s weird that I was ever scared of these things when I was little. Of course, part of that is on my mom for reading me a story about a group of monsters that steal children when I was five. But the more I got to know them, the more I got to like them.

It’s surprisingly political for such a simple movie, with a big focus on social standing and social climbing. It has a valuable moral and intelligent, but simplistic dialog. I’d dare call this the smartest animated film I’ve seen in a long time. If you are a parent, or even if you don’t have kids to drag you to this movie, Box Trolls is worth the watch.

WE GAVE IT: 4 Stars – Watch the Official Trailer and Official Movie Poster below!

4 stars

 

 

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Movie Review: Tammy (2014)

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Tammy 2One minute you’re laughing out loud, the next you’re yawning

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As a fan of Melissa McCarthy, I was really looking forward to this movie. McCarthy has some serious screen presence and she’s always good for a laugh. So did Tammy live up to the hype?

Tammy (Melissa McCarthy) is having possibly the worst day of her life. She totaled her car, got fired from her job at a greasy burger joint, and just found out her husband was cheating on her. She decides that it’s time to get out of town. The only problem is she has no car and no money. Enter grandma Pearl (Susan Sarandon), a heavy drinking, hard partying woman who is just dying to see Niagara Falls. Think Thelma and Louise, only way more fun and way less depressing.

While Tammy is sitting at number 2 in the box office, it’s also getting panned by critics. I will say I found the film enjoyable and laugh out loud in more than a few places, but I also think the critics had some good points.

Tammy is a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Melissa McCarthy fan base. I’m part of that fan base, simply because it’s nice to see a funny woman who doesn’t rely on relationship and period jokes. McCarthy has that slapstick ability and innocent naïveté that I haven’t seen since Chris Farley and I’m pretty sure I could love her antics for years to come.

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That being said, the star studded cast in this movie was utterly wasted. While Susan Sarandon held her own, and showed a surprising capacity for comic timing, the rest of the actors in this film were just plain wasted. Why hire Kathy Bates and Dan Aykroyd if you’re not going to use them?

The place where the film falls flat is with its dramatic moments. I’ve never seen McCarthy as a dramatic actress, with the exception of Pretty Ugly People, and this film is too slapstick to try and cram in some dramatic moments. I really wish they’d just let it be what it was, a road trip comedy, instead of interjecting some kind of lesson.

On the upside, this movie does show that McCarthy has a lot of range and that she can play more than comic relief. Hopefully, this role will open the field for more leading roles for her.

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Tammy is kind of a hit and a miss. One minute you’re laughing out loud, the next you’re yawning. The laughs come too far apart, and the drama misses the mark entirely. But it’s still about 10 times more watchable than most comedies out there, if only for Melissa McCarthy.

I found Tammy mildly disappointing. The best parts of the movie were already shown in the trailer. In addition, if you’re going to put Susan Sarandon in a road trip movie, everyone will expect at least one Thelma & Louise joke, so you might as well do it.

Tammy was a middle of the road effort that was raised slightly thanks to the power of the female leads. It’s still worth the watch, though it wasn’t as good as it could have been.   You can watch the official trailer below:

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