Paramount Pictures Australia has dropped a new trailer for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT, the sixth film in the excellent action series. Judging from the new trailer, filled with more story points than the previous clips, we have no reason to believe that this will be anything less than thrilling.
The best intentions often come back to haunt you. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team (Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) along with some familiar allies (Rebecca Ferguson, Michelle Monaghan) in a race against time after a mission gone wrong. Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, and Vanessa Kirby also join the dynamic cast with filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie returning to the helm.
Also starring Sean Harris, Wes Bentley, and Frederick Schmidt, it hits Australian cinemas on 2 August 2018 from Paramount.
Paramount has confirmed (via Variety) that S.J Clarkson will become the first woman to helm a film in the Star Trek franchise. Yes, even in the progressive future of ‘Trek, it’s 2018 and we’re still having firsts.
Paramount’s Jim Gianopulos announced the news at the CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday. He also confirmed that there are two films under production, with the untitled STAR TREK 4 reportedly involving Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as George Kirk, the late father of Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk. We last saw him in the opening sequence of 2009’s Star Trek, where he heroically sacrificed himself to save his wife and newborn son. Current rumours/speculation are around a time travel plot, which totally sounds like a fourth film thing to do.
Clarkson will work off a script fromJ.D. Payne and Patrick McKay with J.J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber producing through Bad Robot. Executive producers David Ellison and Dana Goldberg of Skydance Media will also be on the credits.
Collider also adds that the mystery Quentin Tarantino project, with a script by The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith, is still on the cards. This is apparently set to debut after the fourth entry in the series that Abrams rebooted almost a decade ago.
Clarkson’s credits span two decades of film and television, including extended stints on the UK series Doctors and Mistresses. More recently, she has directed two episodes apiece for Netflix’s Jessica Jones and The Defenders.
Horror films are, at least on some base level, about robbing the victims of some sense of agency. In a typical slasher or monster pic, one’s own home is no longer a safe haven. In 2016’s Don’t Breathe, director Fede Alvarez gave a blind killer an advantage by plunging the young bodies into darkness. The loss makes the inevitable victory all the more satisfying. With John Krasinski’s A QUIET PLACE, the simple act of making any form of audible communication is taken away from a family. It proves to not just be a gimmick but rather the basis for a powerful and original thriller.
Krasinski and co-writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck have set their film in the dystopian future of 2020. It’s an alternative future, but who knows what the world will look like by the next US presidential election. Monsters attracted sound to have sent the remaining humans into survival mode. Following a family tragedy, Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and Lee Abbott (Krasinski) hole up with their children Regan and Marcus (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) in a remote cabin. Complicating things, Evelyn is heavily pregnant, and newborn babies aren’t known for their hushed tones.
The concept of a silent thriller is hardly a new one, and indeed the first few decades of cinema mastered the art of scaring the bejesus out of audiences with the combination of light, shadow, and an orchestral score. So rather than thinking of A QUIET PLACE as a silent movie, it is better to consider it as one that uses sound judiciously. The absence of sound in a major modern film is deafening, even when it is filled in by Marco Beltrami’s shockingly present score. So when sounds do occur they are more shocking than the eventual monster reveal.
From a narrative point of view, every decision and moment on screen has to count. A heartbreaking scene at the start of the film involving a child’s toy is a prelude to disaster. A moment near a waterfall where a father and his son can express themselves provides joyous and temporary relief. A game of Monopoly uses felt tokens, but a lamp knocked over could be doom. More than anything, these moments are about exploring humanity with the sound turned down. How do you cry out, or weep for a loss, when doing so could mean your own death?
Characters do make some stupid decisions along the way, and you’d probably yell at the screen if you weren’t already deathly afraid of rattling your bag of Malteasers and attracting the creatures. In this way, Krasinski extends the feeling of helplessness and loss to the audience as well. It speaks to the careful environment in which the film was made, where the crew reportedly made as little noise as possible so as to pick up any diagetic sounds in the background.
Real-life couple Krasinski and Blunt are a formidable in the leads, at once familiar but wholly disappearing into their roles. There’s a moment when the duo dance to a tender song with headphones in, knowing that their reverie will not last. Blunt in particular gets a marvellous run in the back half of the film Wonderstruck‘s Simmonds, a young deaf actor who has to carry much of the film’s emotional weight, continues to prove that more representative roles can and should be written.
A QUIET PLACE is one of those rare horror-thrillers that people will continue talking about for months, and should be held up alongside Get Out and other recent genre outings as smart examples of what the mainstream has been missing out on. Ending with a cheeky play on the genre, restoring any hope the monsters took away. Yet there’s rarely a moment in this film when the characters are without their own agency. The script leaves the door open for more, but you can take this as near-perfect self-contained bubble. Now quietly make your way out of the cinema without making a sound.
[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIRECTORS:John Krasinski | WRITERS: Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, John Krasinski | CAST: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 April 2018 (AUS) [/stextbox]
If Alexander Payne’s Sideways saw a character that was happy to metaphorically disappear down the pointy end of a quality wine bottle, then DOWNSIZING gives us a hero that can literally do that. Yet while the film aims for being a timely satire of responses to a global crisis, it misses the mark tonally. It’s just a strange little film.
Following the revelation from Norwegian scientists that humans can now be shrunk down to save resources and space, a new wave of environmentally conscious ‘downsizing’ takes place across the globe. Occupational therapist Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) decides moving to the tiny Leisureland Estates is the change his life needs. However, after undergoing the irreversibly procedure to shrink down, he finds that the grass may not always be greener on the other side.
Just as he did with Citizen Ruth or Election, Payne’s scenario (co-written with regular collaborator Jim Taylor) acts an actual microcosm for the world at large. Payne and Taylor play out a version of the debates over climate change, the refugee crisis, immigration, and social inequality on a small scale. Paul searches for his slice of the American Dream while international playboys Dusan (Christoph Waltz) and Konrad (Udo Kier) raise a glass to the libertarian economy that allows them to live the high life on the backs of illegal imports and the poverty classes. After all, they’re just two wild and crazy guys.
Contrasting this is Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran, forced to be a house cleaner after surviving being smuggled into the US inside of a TV box. Paul’s unlikely relationship with her is part of a standard character arc, but it’s also clumsily commenting on border walls and the so-called ‘trickle down’ economy. It also doesn’t help that her character is written as a caricature, which may be true of all the players, but rankles when there’s a subtext of global harmony underneath the gimmicky set-up.
DOWNSIZING completely loses direction in the lengthy second half of its narrative when it quite explores a world-ending scenario and human responses to it. Which is where Payne and Taylor seem to fall down, telling us that small change can make a difference but also nihilism is the logical conclusion of large-scale optimism. Take away the high-concept, and what we are left with is a misguided piece of social commentary that catalogues the problems, and gleefully tells us there is probably no solution.
[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | US | DIRECTORS: Alexander Payne | WRITERS: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor | CAST: Matt Damon, Hong Chau, Christoph Waltz, Udo Kier, Kristen Wiig | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 135 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 26 December 2017 (AUS) [/stextbox]
The Hollywood adaptation of Japanese anime continues as Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot announced today they have won the rights to adapt the hit Japanese film YOUR NAME for the big screen. Guess the experience of Ghost in the Shell and Death Note hasn’t soured the pot just yet.
J.J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber will produce for Bad Robot, along with Genki Kawamura, producer of the original film. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Arrival) will adapt Shinkai’s screenplay.
Makoto Shinkai‘s original film tells the story of a teenage boy and girl from different backgrounds who discover they can swap bodies. They become desperate to cross space and time to find a way to meet and stop an impending disaster.
The original version of YOUR NAME became the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time in Japan and, as of 16 January 2017, the highest-grossing anime film of all time, overtaking Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. Shinkai has also written a light novel version of the film that was released this month in English language.
For lovers of the original film, this is the kind of news that we approach with trepidation. Hollywood’s take on Akira has been stuck in development hell for years due to complex cultural notes that are difficult to Americanise, and the accusations leveled against Death Note‘s whitewashing and cultural appropriation make this a bit of a minefield for a studio.
The age of intriguing sci-fi thrillers rolls on as Paramount offers a first look at ANNIHILATION, the new film from writer/director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, 28 Days Later). Releasing in on 22 February 2018, you can check out the first look trailer below.
Based on Jeff VanderMeer’s best-selling Southern Reach Trilogy , it follows Lena (Natalie Portman) as biologist whose husband (Oscar Isaac) disappears. She puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not quite find what she’s expecting.
With a formidable cast that also includes Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny, this is definitely an early one to watch out for in 2018.
What Darren Aronofsky has done so well in MOTHER! is get to the heart of creation in all of its subjective and emotional shades. It’s frustrating, at times maddening, beautiful, and baffling. So naturally it’s also about unconditional love.
As such, it begins in flames. Out of the ashes a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) awakens to the remote country house she and her poet husband (Javier Bardem) have just moved into. The only thing stranger than the arrival of a couple (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) is their unwillingness to leave, and the scores of people who soon join them. That said, this bare-bones description seems barely adequate to cover the totality of Aronsfky’s fable.
There’s something reminiscent of Roman Polanski’s psychological thrillers inherent in MOTHER! For a long period of time, we observe what is happening onscreen as the potential byproduct of a fractured mind, one clue being Lawrence’s repeated consumption of a mysterious yellow liquid. Just like Repulsion, the building itself appears to mirror Lawrence’s diminishing control over her situation.
As the allegorical tale progresses, a kind of nightmare logic takes over, where the people Lawrence cares for the most become violent strangers to her. Pfeiffer throws some magnificent shade at Lawrence when the latter suggests some kind of ownership of the house or Bardem. As an audience member, we might want to join Lawrence’s character in screaming frustrated bloody fury at flood of people taking over her space.
That’s because one can’t control the things you love, no more than a creation can be controlled once it has been birthed into the world. As the notion of time become increasingly elastic, diving deeper into the dream fabric Aronofsky is using to weave his tale, the story is about giving everything to someone who is never truly satisfied with it. “Nothing is ever enough,” says Bardem. “I couldn’t create if it was.”
Whether Aronofsky is speaking of himself, to a higher power, or to mothers everywhere remains open to interpretation. If Noah is about the flood narrative of Genesis, then MOTHER! is akin to the creation story. We witness creators delivering their souls to hungry masses, only to watch them destroy it and devour it. Which makes this an incredibly brutal film as well, and will completely divide audiences as to whether Aronfsky has gone too far in pushing his own creations. Whatever the case, it’s unmissable, impossible to look away from, and one of the truly original films of the 21st century.
[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | US | DIR: Darren Aronofsky | WRITER: Darren Aronofsky | CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer | RUNNING TIME: 121 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 14 September 2017 (AUS)[/stextbox]
The unique artwork of James Jean gave rise to the much talked-about first poster for MOTHER!, the upcoming film from Darren Aronofsky. Now Paramount Pictures has sent us the gorgeous companion piece featuring Javier Bardem.
The Eisner Award winning cover artist of comics such as Fables and The Umbrella Academy, Jean’s work has been seen in multiple commercials and on album cover art, such as the 2006 My Chemical Romance album, The Black Parade. Just last month, we selected Jean’s one-sheet for The Shape of Water as one of the best posters of July.
If the first poster was about Jennifer Lawrence really putting her heart into it, then this new one is ablaze with possibilities. We live to pun.
MOTHER! is in cinemas from 14 September 2017 in Australia. A trailer teaser can also be seen below, with the highly anticipated full trailer dropping on 8 August.
We last sat down with Australian actor Daniel Henshall over 5 years ago on the promotional tour for Any Questions for Ben? Since then, the Snowtown star has reached a bigger level of international acclaim, from the cult hit The Babadook to Okja.
To celebrate the release of GHOST IN THE SHELL, available to own on digital today (July 12), Paramount gave us the opportunity to once again chat with Daniel once again. Portraying the Skinny Man, an amalgamation of several characters from Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 animated film.
We chat with Daniel about the making of the film, working with Bong Joon-ho on Okja, and the final season of TURN: Washington’s Spies, in which he plays Culper spy Caleb Brewster.
The last couple of years have seen you take on some increasingly international roles. Was there a point you noticed that trajectory turning?
Not so much, I think it’s been a slow build. I think being fortunate enough to be in a film like Snowtown and The Babadook, followed by an American job for an American television network, a body of work grows and more and more people come into contact with your work and are interested in potentially working with you. So you come on their radars, and you get that chance and, you know, sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve just been fortunate I think, my friend, there’s been a build since Snowtown. There hasn’t been one definite thing. That definitely put me on the right path, and I’ve been very lucky since then.
You mentioned Snowtown there a bit, and it’s certainly a role that a lot of people in Australia return to for you. Because of the nature of that role, a role like John Bunting, is it difficult for some casting people to get past do you think?
Again, I’ve been lucky enough to play varying roles since then and had the opportunity for them to see me in different lights. But yeah, definitely at the outset, in the beginning, in the aftermath of that film, for the first couple of years people did think of me as someone who could play that sort of darkness, someone who could play that character. So roles like that sort of came in my direction, but some other people along the way have given me a chance to express different parts and that’s been a real treat as well and a gift.
Henshall and his co-stars in 2011’s Snowtown.
One of the reasons we’re talking today is the digital release of GHOST IN THE SHELL, which is about as polar opposite as you can get from that role. How did you first get involved in that film?
Well, I just went for an audition back here in Australia. I’d been going back and forth from the States for a show I’d been working on, went in like everybody else and put a test down for a casting agent in Sydney. The feedback was positive and it kind of went from there. Over the next couple of months, working out if the dates would work, and then an offer came out. It was a pretty normal process. The director and the producer has seen Snowtown. So I guess answering that question before wasn’t entirely true. I guess the turning point was obviously Snowtown, because I keep coming back to it. That’s definitely a reference point, as you said, for people here and internationally. It seems to stick in people’s minds.
That role that you played in GHOST IN THE SHELL is obviously a recreation of one of the most iconic scenes from the original, and an amalgamation of several characters. How familiar were you with that world before shooting?
I’d seen the original manga film and was duly impressed, and watched it again before going into the audition room and was impressed with how it hadn’t aged, and how scenes were incredibly mature. Personality, where does identity come from, the idea of self, gender bending, improvement, where we’re headed with AI, and all of that was definitely very influential for many filmmakers and films that have come since. So I was familiar with the film itself, but not the massive amounts of original content dating back to the late ’80s with the books, and the consequent television shows after the original film, and the second feature that came out in the early 2000s. So I wasn’t totally across it, but I was across the character, and as you say, the amalgamation of it from the original and the importance of that character within that world being a clear example of what was happening to people within that society, and how it was effecting that society.
Daniel Henshall plays Skinny Man in Ghost in the Shell from Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures
Yeah, one of the distinctive things about that film was its distinctive visual look, and whenever I saw behind the scenes footage of you, you were surrounded by a wall of green. Of those scenes that you’re in, how different is it working within that purely visual effects driven environment?
Yeah, I’d started working in around green screens on a show I do in the States. That sort of introduced to me what it was like to work on something like that on that scale. Of course, it wasn’t on the same scale as GHOST IN THE SHELL. I was so focused on the stunts that it didn’t seem to affect me, you know. I had an idea of what the world was going to look like around me. That water-filled courtyard, in which that fight scene takes place in, I’d seen the images or visual representations and the director took me through that and showed me what was around me. The original film is such a classic, and iconic scene as you say, that you get a wonderful idea.
To be honest with you, I was so shit-scared of the stunts, because I was given the chance to attempt most of those stunts. What you see in the film is roughly 75-80% me, and the rest is a wonderful stunt performer finishing off the more difficult manoeuvres. So I worked on that for a week, and I felt pretty comfortable with that. So the only thing that I was focusing on was enacting what was happening to the character, and executing those stunts. So the green screen was just part of it, it didn’t affect me as much.
I can understand what it must be like working with dialogue with another actor or character that isn’t actually there, and being in an environment that isn’t actually there, and how distracting and how unreal or out of body that must feel. Whereas this was very physical. The water was real. The concrete was real, although it wasn’t actual concrete, it was added, but it felt and looked like it what it was meant to feel and look like.
The second scene that I do on that film is in a real set. So I had physical awareness of the world that I was in represented by the set. So it didn’t really affect me, to give you a really long-winded and convoluted answer, because I was so focused on what I was doing.
The other thing you have been in, and another special effects film in a way, is OKJA, recently released on Netlflix. Now I was lucky to catch this at the Sydney Film Festival Closing Night.
Oh good one. You got to see it on the big screen.
Now, on stage, and I’m quoting you here, you said of the experience that you “fucking loved it.” Tell me a little bit about the experience of working with Bong Joon-ho.
Bong’s wonderful. He’s not only, as you experienced at the Sydney Film Festival, a very generous, insightful, and humourous and humble person, he’s just so meticulous and incredibly thought out. Every moment or frame, there is so much detail poured into. Working with that, in the beginning, was terrifying. He’s a guy who’s a perfectionist. He knows exactly what he wants and he goes about getting it from the outset, and you have to trust that you are able to fulfil those expectations. It doesn’t necessarily give you time to find it, and in the beginning that’s scary. You know from being a fan of his work that what he’s asking you to do is be spot-on and great, but to be able to fulfil it to the level that he would like is quite scary.
Then, of course, over time you get to know someone and they get to know you, and you get to trust them and trust in yourself. It became so exciting and freeing, knowing that you go to work, and you should be there, and he’s envisaged you feeling out those colours and levels and the physical nature of the character, and you own that. So whatever he’s asking you to do, it comes from you. It frees you, and that becomes really exciting and really joyful to do. You don’t often get that feeling on a set, of collaboration and trust and empowerment.
He’s such an inclusive director, and such a joy to work with, and the people he had cast, asking you to fill in the blanks he had asked you to fill in. Like a colouring book, I suppose. The outline is there, and he’s just asking you to shade it in the colours that he’s put there in front of you. How you do that, and where you put those colours, is up to you. You work together to find them, but once you do it’s fantastic. You know, there’s no pressure in the end, which is not often something that I feel. It’s nice not to have to feel no pressure and no responsibility.
Henshall as eco-warrior Blond in Okja
It certainly sounds like a collaboration that you’d like to continue in the future.
Oh, if I had the chance, mate, I’d jump at it to work with him again. He’s a very unique filmmaker, and he makes quite diverse films varying in themes and styles. You’re working with someone who is a master of their art form, and it’s a privilege. We get along, which is a bonus, but I’d jump at it in a heartbeat.
You mentioned it a couple of times before, and of course TURN is currently screening its final season. Does working on a multi-year series like that open you up to a number of roles, and expose you to a larger audience as you say, but does it also limit what you can take on in terms of features?
During the time of shooting it, you wait until a certain part or time of the year before you can – and it’s champagne problems. I’m very fortunate to have this problem, for want of a better word. The show would shoot between October and March, so it would crossover, and you were committed to that. Then after it’s finished, the powers that be at AMC would decided whether they would renew it or not, and have a certain date to do that by. So you are contractually obliged to ask them if you’re allowed to take on any offers that are made in that time, up until they say yes or no to another season. You have to, sort of, keep at bay those offers that come during when the season might be.
So, because of that show I’ve missed out on a couple of jobs, but it’s a champagne problem to give up work for another job. It’s not one that most actors find themselves in, so I’ve been very fortunate over the last four or five years.
Henshall in AMC’s TURN: Washington’s Spies
Fantastic. So what’s next for Daniel Henshall?
Good question, man. There are things bubbling away, nothing set in stone at this stage. We’ll see, we’ll see. There’s a couple of things on the boil, but nothing that I can speak about just at the minute. So I’m in a wonderful place. I feel very grateful that there is work out there for me, and interest, and there will be more of it to come. I can definitely trust in that and that’s a wonderful feeling.
We’d like to thank Daniel for generously giving his time to chat, and Paramount Pictures Australia and Nikstar PR for making it happen. GHOST IN THE SHELL is available to own on digital today(July 12) via paramountpicturesathome.com.au.
Paramount Pictures Australia has announced that Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore will visit Australia to present the highly anticipated documentary AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWERto invited guestsat special hosted screeningsin Sydney on Monday July 10 and Melbourne on Thursday July 13.
A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes – in moments private and public, funny and poignant — as he pursues the inspirational idea that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER in selected cinemas August 10.
