Love is complicated for Keira Knightley

by Murtada

It seems that Jason Clarke has cornered the market on playing husbands whose wives look elsewhere in 2017. That is one of the plot threads of the Sundance hit Mudbound where Carey Mulligan plays his wife, who has eyes for his brother played by Garrett Hedlund. And now in the The Aftermath he’s a British colonel in Germany right after WWII, whose wife (Keira Knightley) forms a bond with the German widower (Alexander Skarsgård) who used to own the house they now live in. The film just finished shooting in Prague under the helm of James Kent (Testament to Youth). It might appear on the fall festival circuit.

Knightley was seen this week in London shooting scenes for that Love Actually sequel we’ve been hearing so much about...

Click to read more ...

Sundance 2017: Mudbound

There’s usually a film every year that premieres at Sundance and goes on to do very well at the Oscars, almost a year later. Think Brooklyn (2015), Whiplash (2014), Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) and Precious (2009). This year it could be Captain Fantastic, but most definitely will be Manchester by the Sea. And next year it could be Dee Rees's Mudbound...

Click to read more ...

A Deluge of Kennedys

Murtada here. Within the next two years, there will be three movies about The Kennedys. They seem to be as fascinating to filmmakers as the British Royal family. Even less famous members of the family are now subjects of movies.

Diana (2013) was both a car crash and framed its story by a notorious car crash. Now it's time for the Kennedys' own notorious car crash. Announced this week is Chappaquiddick with Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy. The film tell the story of 1969 tragic car accident that involved Ted and took the life of teacher and political campaigner Mary Jo Kopechne. How Ted handled the aftermath - leaving the scene, waiting hours to report it - led of course to the end of any presidential aspirations he might have had. The film will be directed by John Curran, who previously directed The Painted Veil (2006) and Tracks (2013).

The very busy Emma Stone - currently being Billie Jean King - is set to play another JFK sibling, the lesser-known eldest sister Rose Marie “Rosemary” Kennedy in Letters from Rosemary. Joseph and Rose Kennedy’s first born was lobotomised at the age of 23 after developing violent mood swings that embarrassed her famous family. The film is reportedly about the events leading up to the lobotomy and its aftermath. We assume this might be a project that will not be popular within the family. Not that they would ever comment about any of the many projects about them. Royals don’t do that!

The first project we will likely see though is Pablo Larrain’s Jackie about the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination. Once earmarked for Darren Aronofsky and Rachel Weisz, it now stars Natalie Portman as Jackie and Peter Sarsgaard as Bobby. Aronofsky remains a producer. Production pictures have been released months ago, so we assume it’s in post production and might appear on the fall festival circuit. Sarsgaard’s hair seems wrong, although Portman’s costumes are spot on. Jackie tackles much covered territory, what more could be added to those often discussed few days? The other two projects are about more obscure chapters in the family history, which could mean they might be more interesting.

Still that’s just way too many projects about one rich and powerful family. There’s even an upcoming sequel to the 2011 miniseries The Kennedys, with Matthew Perry as Ted and Katie Holmes reprising her Jackie. I’m already exhausted, are you?

Carey Mulligan to work with Dee Rees

Murtada here. Carey Mulligan is continuing her quest to collaborate with the most interesting directors. After Luhrmann, the Coens, McQueen, Refn and Vinterberg, it’s time for Dee Rees (Pariah, HBO’s Bessie). The two are planning to work on an adaptation of Hillary Jordan’s 2009 novel Mudbound. Rees will write and direct, Jason Clarke, Garrett Hedlund and Straight Outta Compton’s standout Jason Mitchell will co-star.

Despite what Mulligan claimed her agent told her after watching Suffragette (2015); 'Darling, you're lovely in it, but blue jeans film next”, it’s another period piece. Although this time it’s set post WWII in Jim Crow’s South. Mulligan will play a city bred woman who is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta cotton farm, and her entanglements with two soldiers returning home from the war - one of them is white and her brother-in-law, and the other is black, a son of the sharecroppers who live on the farm. The story deals with among other things the extreme racial prejudice of that era. We assume Clarke is the husband, Hedlund the brother-in-law and Mitchell is the other soldier.

Carey should have no problem this time since she's not working with a man

It is an exciting collaboration since Rees proved a distinctive cinematic voice with Pariah and that she had an eye for period drama with Bessie. Mulligan is always fascinating on screen, although perhaps she hasn’t quite yet found a film that allowed her to soar as high as she did on stage last year in Skylight. And it’s nice to see Mitchell get a chance to capitalize on his impressive breakout. The project is in early stages and hasn’t secured full financing yet so lets hope it sticks.

Has anyone read the novel? Should we be excited?

Review: Terminator Genisys

Tim here. "The best Terminator movie since T2: Judgment Day" is a statement like "Jai Courtney's best-ever performance in a movie": they both have the functional shape of a compliment, but they're not actually saying very much that's complimentary. And they're both true of Terminator Genisys, the little movie that couldn't over the 4th of July weekend, and is currently on pace to be one of 2015's most visible and embarrassing box office flops.

That's not... entirely... fair. It is probably the case that Genisys gets more wrong than it gets right, starting right from that ghastly title (it's derived from an in-movie brand name designed for maximum marketing impact, but that hardly makes it less obnoxious). But it doesn't only get things wrong, and some of its successes are genuinely worth the time it will take to watch the first half of the movie on Netflix several months from now.

The plot is a jam-packed muddle, but the basic strokes are that, in the war-torn California of 2029, human resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) is about to stamp out the evil artificial intelligence system Skynet, but before he can, Skynet sends an assassin robot called a T-800 (Brett Azar's body with Arnold Schwarzenegger's younger face CGI'd on) back in time to 1984.

More...

Click to read more ...