Trailer for William H. Macy's Directorial Debut 'Rudderless' with Billy Crudup, Selena Gomez, and Anton Yelchin

One of the movies I heard a great deal about at Sundance, some of it good and some bad, was William H. Macy's directorial debut, Rudderless. The film sounds a lot like John Carney's recent musical drama Begin Again, exploring music and its power to make our lives better even in the face of terrible hardship. And with a release date only a few weeks away the first trailer has been released and it looks those who heaped praise on it may have been right.

Macy has gathered a strong cast with Billy Crudup, Anton Yelchin, Selena Gomez, Felicty Huffman, Laurence Fishburne, and Jamie Chung for the story of Sam (Crudup) a father struggling to deal with the death of his son. Turning to alcohol to cope with the pain, he finds a different coping mechanism when a box of his son's demo tapes is uncovered, revealing a gift for music Sam never knew he had. Learning to play the songs as a means of connecting with his child, Sam and another young man (Yelchin) form a rock band that becomes more popular than expected.

Rudderless hits VOD and theaters on October 17th.


Rudderless trailer 1 (2014) - Selena Gomez Movie (HD) by MovieTrailerz

Read More

Review: 'The Signal,' starring Laurence Fishburne and Brendon Thwaites

Now I’m going to keep it 100 with you readers here: I went into The Signal not knowing anything about this. I think at most I might’ve seen the trailer when I was sitting in a Landmark theater before seeing Palo Alto. So I’m sitting down thinking, "I’m clearly slipping here on my critic game." Luckily, going in blind smacked me with such a wondrous surprise. I got to go in knowing nothing about The Signal, a tight 95-minute sci fi thriller that starts nice slow and builds to great conclusion.

The story starts with a trio of friends on a road trip. Nick and Jonah are taking Nick’s girlfriend Haley to California, where she is going to Caltech. Along the journey the two, who are hackers that go to MIT, are searching for another hacker going by the handle of Nomad. They are trying to get some payback as Nomad almost got them expelled from MIT. They end up tracing Nomad to a remote place in the middle of the desert and once they search, things go bad quickly, and soon we just see Nick waking up in some government-looking facility in captivity being questioned by scientist in protective suit named Damon.

I’m not going to lie here: This film is pretty surprising. The film starts pretty much like a simple relationship drama and then for a short moment went into found-footage territory that got me scared. See, I find those films quite laughably terrible, but then right when you think it’s going in one direction, it completely changes on you again. This is where the film excels: its ability to shift between genre styles yet still keep its science-fiction core.

There are not many actors in this film, so the focus is manly on the four main stars here. Most of the heavy lifting in acting is on Brendon Thwaites as Nick and Laurence Fishburne as Damon. Each scene with the two of them has a great back and forth that at points can remind you of Fishburne’s scenes in the show Hannibal with how much is said with just calm delivery and facial expressions. Beau Knapp does well as essentially the “best friend with quips” Jonah. The script doesn’t overdo it at all. The Haley character is pretty interesting in the beginning of the film, but basically becomes a damsel in distress that left me very cold. I think Olivia Cooke who plays Haley could’ve done more if given the chance.

Overall, William Eubank has directed a pretty great little sci-fi film. It gave me the same feeling the films Moon and Chronicle did. Here is something new and original on the screen with fresh faces that didn’t cost the GDP of a small country to make.  I hope all you take the time to find and see this summer-time gem of a film because it’s really worth it.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Guttenbergs

Read More

Laurence Fisbhurne Hears 'The Signal' in First Trailer and Poster

"Can you recall for me the first time you encountered the signal"? One of the most buzzed about films at this past Sundance was The Signal, a sci-fi feature starring Laurence Fisbhurne, rising star Brenton Thwaites, and Olivia Cooke. The first trailer has been released and it's a little tough to figure out what's going on, other than Thwaites being interrogated by Fishburne about his encounter with the mysterious signal. There is more to it, obviously, and you can check that out in the official synopsis:

Three college students on a road trip across the Southwest experience a detour: the tracking of a computer genius who has already hacked into MIT and exposed security faults. The trio find themselves drawn to an eerily isolated area. Suddenly everything goes dark. When one of the students, Nic (Brenton Thwaites of “The Giver” and “Maleficent”), regains consciousness, he is in a waking nightmare… 

Alrighty then. Despite a lot of positive response to the film, the people I know personally who saw it were less enthusiastic. We'll find out what The Signal has to offer when it opens June 13th.


The Signal Trailer by Stuff We Like

Read More

TV Fail: Fox News Hates 'The Lego Movie'; Host Mistakes Samuel L. Jackson for Laurence Fishburne

The LEGO Movie opened this weekend and kicked George Clooney's Monuments Men square in their ass with a $70M debut. But even though the film made tons of cash and is basically a feature-length ad for you to buy more expensive toys, those morons at Fox News think it pushes some sort of anti-business agenda. Say wha now?

Yep, during a segment on Varney and Co., hosted by some dullard guest host, makes the case that the massive studio film is Hollywood taking another shot at big business, because if there's anything Hollywood hates it's money.(!?!?!?!?) As usual, this fountain of misinformation comes from people who probably didn't even see the movie but found out Will Ferrell's villain character is named Lord Business and took opposition to him literally. >sigh<  Perhaps they think LEGO Batman is part of the 99% or something? Eh, these are the same folks who hated The Lorax, took issue with The Muppets, but championed both awful Atlas Shrugged flicks. Whatever, ya'll.



And then there's this clown, entertainment "reporter" Sam Rubin of KTLA, who apparently can't tell the difference between Samuel L. Jackson and Laurence Fishburne. Granted, Jackson does seem to be in EVERYTHING, but he and Fishburne couldn't look less different if they tried, and so it was hella embarrassing when Rubin asked Jackson about that Kia Super Bowl ad featuring Morpheus from The Matrix flicks. Jackson is understandably perturbed by the mistake, and makes sure to let Rubin have it, somewhat tongue-in-cheek but somewhat not. I suspect there will be an opening for Rubin's job soon, and Jackson seems to agree.

Samuel L. Jackson DESTROYS News Anchor -- I'm Not Laurence Fishburne, YOU MORON!!! - Watch More Celebrity Videos or Subscribe

Read More

Review: 'Ride Along', Starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart

It's really hard to dislike buddy cop movies regardless of how many there are out there. Yes, they cover the same territory, one's always more sour than the other, and though they hate each other in the beginning, they become comrades by the end of the film. It's all been there, done that, and Ride Along is much of the same. Director Tim Story doesn't try very hard to make it into anything original, and maybe that's his whole point. 

Ben Barber, AKA "Blackhammer" to the gaming world (Kevin Hart), is a high school security officer and hopeful police cadet. He's just gotten accepted to the police academy and loves playing video games to the point of obsession. He's also in love with Angela Payton (Tika Sumpter) and in taking the next steps in their relationship, asks her tough-ass cop brother James (Ice Cube) for his blessing to ask Angela to marry him. 

Ben is scared of James, and James doesn't think very highly of Ben (setting your future fiance's brother on fire at a BBQ doesn't help either). Nor does the experienced cop feel that Ben is good enough to be with his sister. So in order to "prove himself" to James, Ben agrees to go with him on a ride along for a day and see if he's worth his salt as a future brother-in-law and as a cop. 

At work, James has been investigating a faceless crime boss named Omar (Laurence Fishburne) with his two buddy cops Santiago (John Leguizamo) and Miggs (Bryan Callen). As the ride along goes through the day, it's Ben who discovers a few clues that may lead them to who James has been searching for for three years... and what could also gain James's blessing. 

There's no doubt that Kevin Hart's a funny guy. And while his ranting is occasionally funny, it sometimes goes on for too long and causes the scene to lose its humor. The second act of the film also involves too much of the same thing: Ice Cube taking Hart to different venues that involve what the police apparently call a "126" call, which is an annoying situation that no cop wants to deal with. One of these 126 calls involve a crazy man at a farmer's market who douses himself in honey and ends up fighting Hart. 

The funniest parts of the movie come in the very last ten minutes or so of the film when all the action's going down and James and Ben find themselves in a situation they don't seem equipped enough to handle. This is when the dragged out events of the first three-quarters of the film come into play and finally pay off without being shoved in our faces for humor's sake. 

Ice Cube and Kevin Hart generally make a decent pair onscreen, annoying each other to no end and Hart acting like Ice Cube's much younger, and scared little brother who hides behind him when the going gets a little tough. And to Hart's defense, his inexperience as a cop plays heavily into his character and the scenes where he tries to act like Ice Cube's tough-guy persona. 

As a comedy, Ride Along is just okay. It brings a few genuinely amusing moments that entertain, but lacks the ammunition needed to keep the laughs going throughout. Some of the comedy is overdone and too much time is spent on Ice Cube embarrassing Hart in different situations that it becomes a little tiresome after awhile. The finale, however, really amps the entertainment value this movie has to offer, so at least it ends on a good note and goes out in style. 

Read More

Lois Lane Takes Center Stage In the First 'Man of Steel' Clips

With all of the excitement surrounding Zack Snyder's Man of Steel and the incredible action it promises, it's been easy to forget that star Henry Cavill has been surrounded by some incredible character actors. Michael Shannon has received the bulk of the attention for playing villain General Zod, but you've also got Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, and Russell Crowe lending their considerable talents, proving that Warner Bros. was willing to go all out to make sure this film is a hit. With the release of the first two clips, it's not Cavill who takes center stage, but co-stars Amy Adams and Laurence Fishburne.

In the first clip we see Adams as intrepid reporter Lois Lane, and Fishburne as her boss at the Daily Planet, Perry White. She's in the midst of taking an earful of harsh criticism for what appears to be a botched story involving Superman. The second clip is a scene that has been glimpsed in earlier trailers, featuring Superman and Lane in an interrogation room, where she questions him on the meaning of his 'S' symbol.

Man of Steel flies into theaters on June 14th.


MAN OF STEEL - Extrait #1 (bootleg) [VO|HD720p] by Team Lyricis


MAN OF STEEL - Extrait: #2 [VO|HD720p] by Team Lyricis

Read More

William H. Macy adds Selena Gomez, Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, and Anton Yelchin to "Rudderless'

 

In a way it's surprising that William H. Macy is only now making his feature directorial debut with the musical drama, Rudderless. A consummate character actor who has worked with some of the great filmmakers over his 30+ year career, including David Mamet, the Coen Brothers, and Paul Thomas Anderson, Macy has always seemed like a natural to make the transition behind the camera. With his wife Felicity Huffman set to co-star alongside him, Macy has now gathered an impressive group to help make his first film go smoothly.

Laurence Fishburne, Selena Gomez, Billy Crudup, and Anton Yelchin have joined Rudderless, which is based on a story conceived by Macy along with screenwriters Casey Twenter and Jeff Robison.  The film follows a grieving father in a downward spiral who discovers a box of original music written by his dead son. He forms a band to perform the songs and in the process learns to find peace and cope with the loss. No word on the roles each actor will play, but we know Macy will take on the lead role of the father.

It's a solid group that should fit in well with the sorts of films Macy usually finds himself acting in. The only exception may be Gomez, and it'll be interesting to see how she fits into the picture.  Filming on Rudderless begins later this month. [Variety]

Read More