Thursday
Sep182014
It's New Year's Eve for "A Most Violent Year"
Thursday, September 18, 2014 at 1:40PM 
It's the dread December 31st just-barely-Oscar-qualifying release for JC Chandor's curiosity A Most Violent Year. We had seen virtually nothing until today but now the poster, the teaser, a new website newyorkcity1981.com and the release date. We hear the acting is topnotch but then with that cast (Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, Albert Brooks, David Oyelowo, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, Elizabeth Marvel, etcetera), why wouldn't it be?
Here's the teaser. Let us hope releasing a movie called that on New Year's Eve isn't a horrific omen for the good health of 2015.
Reader Comments (33)
Yay, happy to see it getting released. Hope the date is more blessing than curse.
I like this poster. It says, Cold, Cold love store, Cold Dangerous lose story and Cold, Stylish Dangerous love story. Plus the title is clear. Everything needed to pique my interest and give me what I need to remember it.
The Teaser looks pretty generic crime family gets caught though. I'll want to see more before I spend bucks on a Sopranos retread.
The Iron Lady was released on 12/30... maybe it work for this too.
At the NYE release date sorta makes sense for this film...
However, the cinematography looks rather ugly, no? Lots of yellows, browns, and creams. Ew.
She's giving me Michele Pfeiffer SCARFACE in that poster :)
I don't get that much from it,will JChastian not be nommed at all.
I think December 31 is way too late for a small film from a fledgling distributor to build buzz. As great as it may be, A Most Violent Year could very easily get lost in the shuffle.
I am so excited for this one. Jessica is my fave young actress and Oscar is my fave young actor. Can't wait to see them together.
The Exorcist was released on Dec. 31. Box office history (of course the studio expected a flop).
How is Chandor still getting the shaft? Third film in the row with a tiny release and studio backing that ensures it won't get much attention.
I heard Jessica is going to lead instead of supporting. I doubt she'll be nominated in the lead category.....
Evan: Yeah, looking at it? This is like Magic Mike but WITHOUT the reprieve of how the stripping scenes were lit. Also: To be honest, instead of something like this, I'd genuinely love to see what a filmmaker would do with adapting the Saints Row games, especially the fourth.
seesaw, apparently it has just been confirmed that she's going lead for AMVY. That category is looking very crowded with actresses with juicy roles in films backed by big distributors, so I can't see her getting in. Looks like she won't be getting a nod this year. :(
It seems to me that after the relative weak showing of Miss Julie and the lack of real excitement and muddled release for Eleanor Rigby, this might be her only chance for this year. Word is that she kills it too. Who the hell knows.
It's been clear since they acquired this at Sundance last year that A24 sees this film as their entree into the awards world, so I think they're going to try really hard not to blow their chances at any big nominations.
NYC 1981...the year I moved to NYC. Hope they get it right.
I hope it's good. I feel like a lot of folks in Hollywood keep trying to make Oscar Isaac 'happen' and undoubtedly last year I thought he had nailed it (his Inside Llewyn Davis' performance was one of the best of the year, male or female; for me #2 behind Cate the Great) but he is by no means solid lead material... He seems more of a Christian Bale-type. He can do it all, if he wants to. I hope he does.
Jessica Chastain: I LOVE her. That's all she needs for me to sit through this. I don't care if it's a Sopranos rehash, Edie Falco/Carmela ruled that joint and if that's so, that means La Chastain will kill this!
OFF-TOPIC: Big Eyes trailer has come out. If I didn't know it was from Tim Burton, I wouldn't 'get' it from the trailer. Looks like a generic Oscar baity drama. Looks like the stepbrother of Saving Mr Banks.
This did not give me happy thoughts.
I like the cast and like thrillers, so I'll def see it eventually - but there was nothing all that great about that trailer. Definitely does not look like an Oscar movie.
Maybe it's a Zero Dark Thirty: it hadn't even been released yet when critics started to hand it the top prizes out of nowhere, launching it from forgotten contender to ordained frontrunner before anyone even saw it...and then nobody could stop talking about it. (Plus, Jessica Chastain = link)
Eh - looks classy and the cast is to die for and yadda yadda, but honestly, I'm a little sick of young(ish) directors doing the festish-y Coppola/Scorsese/Lumet/DePalma 70s/early 80s crime drama homage. I get it - they loved Goodfellas and Prince of the City in college and feel obliged to make a movie in that mode, but I've kinda had enough. It feels like a regression for JC Chandor, but as always I'll be happy if I'm proven wrong and AMVY is some of kind of masterpiece.
Chastain is not a young actress. She's already 37. LMAO . She's just like Hathaway who tries too hard and will try her best to get an oscar. At least hathaway has rachel getting married and les miserables. Chastain's shouting scnes in Miss Julie are laughable. There were laughs throughout the screening of her film in TIFF. She is totally the most overrated actress out there. Her crying at the end of ZD30 is just so forced and too built up. Nathiel continues to praise her character that she plays not the acting at all.
gocampo - snooore.. you're the one trying too hard... next!
Jay - I saw that Big Eyes trailer and my thoughts are, there's no way Amy Adams will win an Oscar for that. Not even sure about a nomination. Looks like light fluff. I would say Juli has the oscar on the bag. Yes, please!
I agree that JC is not the second coming but she is choosing interesting projects and directors so I wouldn't quite compare to AH as she has way less range and is simply overwrought,unbelievable and souless in Les Mis..
Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married >Every Chastain's performances. Chastain is a very nice person but she is a terrible actress. See the Heiress. Awful performances throughout, just lucky to work with directors who are too stupid to belive in her minimal talent
My, my, Kathryn Bigelow, Terrence Mallick, Liv Ullman, JC Chandor, Jeff Nichols, Christopher Nolan, Guillermo del Toro, Xavier Dolan, and Ridley Scott are all stupid. No actress would want that auteur resume.
gocampo - wow. someone hasnt been reading carefully. or i'll assume you haven't read my Miss Julie review.
mark -- stop it. Hathaway is awesome in Les Miz! ;)
AND YES EVERYONE - Jessica Chastain is planning to campaign lead for A Most Violent Year (I called the studio) so i need to change the charts again. UGH.
Big fan of JC Chandor's last two features, especially All is Lost, so I'm all in for this one. But I see Roark's point; I'm getting early Al Pacino vibes from Isaac. And David--yes, it's the haircut.
I'm starting to worry Jessica Chastain's range might be a bit more limited than her breakout year led us to believe - let me emphasise: I'm not saying her range is actually limited - merely more so than it initially seemed. Her performance in Eleanor Rigby was jarringly thin (though not necessarily bad per se), and though I'm still dying to see Miss Julie, it doesn't sound like that'll be very impressive either.
Still, this trailer looks interesting and she hits some promising notes in it. So my worries could very well turn out to be for nothing. Which would be great. Cause she seems so lovely.
Goran - another way to look at it is that, as actors increase their body of work, there will necessarily be more turkeys and underwhelming projects. Acting is not a perfect art, and not even the actors that we consider thespians hit the right notes all the time. What Chastain has done so far, personally, is already impressive and demonstrates an acting caliber higher than most.
Color me interested for AMVY.
Also, this is very off-topic Nathaniel, so excuse me but can I make a request for the site? I don't post every day but tfe is my snack site to go to in these busy days and I enjoy it very much. Having said this, I wonder if it would be possible to expand the number of posts that appear in one page. I find that now that you have more contributors, and we have the festivals and the Oscar season approaching, there are more articles per day. Sometimes I miss a day, and I need to go back several pages to find the stuff I missed.
I personally prefer to scroll down rather than clicking "next page" which, as ridiculous as it sounds, takes a bit more time since the browser needs to load new content. Just a suggestion.
Thank you for excellent coverage and contributing articles, everyone.
gocampo--see Chastain in 'Eleanor Rigby' before you dismiss her as a no-talent. She's brilliant in it (and many other films). And I saw her in The Heiress and she wasn't bad...uninspired, but not bad.
I hate when other awards are used as titles for actors, especially if it is next to another actor with "Academy Award Winner/Nominee" in front of their name. Every other award sounds less "important" out of context out of the award show itself. "Cable Ace Award Winner..."
Chastain is only good in silent scenes that don't require words. Too bad she missed the silent era. If she is a good actress, she should have got parts at her late 20s. Maybe 25+. Old chastain probably won't win an oscar. I want to see her suffer with nominations only. She's annoying as fûck. If she doesn't get a nomination this year despite having "I'm fûcking acting' give me an oscar" performances, the chastain era is totally done.
Jones - I shall experiment with post amounts but I thought too many would make initial page loud slowly