Movie Maven

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Michael Fassbender - the man in Demand!

More fantastic news for Michael Fassbender fans (Fassies like yours truly!). He is attached to another exciting new project, this time directed by Steven Soderbergh called Knockout. Knockout is supposed to be in the "vein of La Femme Nikita" and is slated to star mixed martial artist Gina Carano. The Playlist reports that the principal cast includes Ewan McGregor, Dennis Quaid, Michael Douglas, and (cartwheels) Michael Fassbender.

Yippee! Michael is getting work with fantastic directors. David Cronenberg and now Soderbergh? He is arriving.

Lost in the Air - The Jason Reitman Press Tour Simulator

Lost In The Air: The Jason Reitman Press Tour Simulator from Jason Reitman on Vimeo.

Three months. Three hundred interviews. My press tour of North America and Europe with Up In The Air. A complete and utter blur.

Jason Reitman, during the press tour for his film Up in the Air, took pictures of every interviewer with his iPhone, saying he was working on a project. He also posted a pie chart on his twitter account, showing the frequency of questions about different topics, George Clooney getting the biggest piece of the pie.

Can you catch Jimmy Fallon, Roger Ebert and Charlie Rose flash by in the video? I also spotted the tunnel to terminal C at O'Hare. It's really fun how he turned the camera on all the people interviewing him, and made the whole mind numbing process at least a little interesting for himself by documenting the frequency of questions, etc.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU - 10 Year anniversary

Can you believe it's been 10 years since this movie came out? 10 Things I Hate About You, a modern version of The Taming of the Shrew really was a step above most teen movies, and Heath Ledger was a big part of that. This was the role that I first saw him in. I'm not a fan of the straggly hair, but I love his character in this movie. He could have made a million more teen movies and gone the heartthrob route, but he chose a different path, making too few very interesting films. We can only imagine what else he would have done with his career.

10 Things I Hate About You is out today on a special 10 year anniversary edition DVD which includes Heath's screen test, and a documentary about the film.

Happy 35th Birthday, Bradley Cooper!

This was certainly Bradley's year with the success of The Hangover making him a breakout star. He has a small part in the upcoming ensemble film Valentine's Day. You've seen him in the trailer on a plane with Julia Roberts. But I recently read he actually plays a gay man in the film, involved with Eric Dane of Grey's Anatomy. Whatever. I'll be there watching! He stars also in the upcoming A-Team as Faceman, the role played by Dirk Benedict on the TV show. The A-Team comes out in June.

And of course, Hangover 2 is in the works.

Fish Tank Trailer

Fish Tank won the Jury Prize at Cannes and has made a lot of buzz on the film festival circuit. All I had heard about it was that Michael Fassbender was in it, until I saw this amazing trailer.

The film is a coming-of-age story centering on 15-year-old Mia (Jarvis) who is in a constant state of war with her family and the world around her, without any creative outlet for her considerable energies save a secret love of hip-hop dance. When she meets her party-girl mother's charming new boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender), she is amazed to find he returns her attention, and believes he might help her start to make sense of her life. A clear-eyed, potent portrait of teenage sexuality and vulnerability.

Wow. This film looks amazing. It has a limited release in the US January 15, and will be also shown On Demand starting Jan. 13th. Michael Fassbender's Hunger becomes available on DVD on Feb. 16th so I can finally see another great performance of his that everyone has been talking about.