Trailer for Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Hollywood Debut, 'Broken Horses', starring Anton Yelchin

When James Cameron and Alfonso Cuaron make the kinds of glowing statements they've made about Broken Horses, maybe the rest of us should start paying attention. Directed by acclaimed 62-year-old Indian director Vidhu Vinod Chopra (1942 A Love Story) as his first true Hollywood effort, the film features a largely American cast consisting of Anton Yelchin, Vincent D'Onofrio, Sean Patrick Flannery, Thomas Jane, Chris Marquette, Wes Chatham, and Maria Valverde. With the first trailer now hitting screens in India and a U.K. release coming next April, we're getting a look at why Cameron calls the film an "artistic triumph".

What do we know about the plot? It's been kept quiet for the most part, but it's said to be “about the relationship between two brothers —a concert-level violinist and a hired mercenary— and is set against the drug war in the turbulent American-Mexican border, and about how wrong choices can destroy lives and everything one loves.”

Hopefully getting the word out early will help secure a big enough stateside release that we'll all have a chance to check Broken Horses out and introduce Chopra's work to a larger audience.


Broken Horses - Teaser [VO] by Filmosphere

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First Trailer for Sci-Fi Flick 'Vice' starring Bruce Willis and Thomas Jane

How many movies about artificial intelligences gaining sentience have we seen just this year? Probably too many (can we axe Transcendence from our memories, please?), and there are more on the way next year. It's a popular sci-fi trope, one that isn't going away any time soon, especially since they make easy genre fodder for guys like Bruce Willis, who has specialized in "easy genre" movies for the bulk of his recent career. The latest to likely find a short trip to the discount bin is Vice, a sci-fi flick from director Brian A. Miller.

"Imagine a place where there are no laws, no rules, no consequences", Willis drones at the beginning of Vice's first trailer. He plays the owner of a resort where people are free to live out their darkest desires using very lifelike robots. Ambyr Childers (We Are What We Are) plays one of these robots who has memories of past atrocities and flees, with a long-haired Thomas Jane brought in to track her down. The dialogue is pretty atrocious but there may be some value in it if you're hard-up to watch Willis kick some robot butt. Oh wait, he doesn't seem to do much but stand around and chit-chat. My bad. Take it all back.

Vice opens next year on January 16th.


Vice Official Trailer #1 (2015) - Bruce Willis Action Movie by Trailer Addict

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Review: Gregg Araki's 'White Bird in a Blizzard' starring Shailene Woodley and Eva Green

NOTE: This is a reprint of my review from the Sundance Film Festival. White Bird in a Blizzard is available now On Demand.

It's easy to dismiss White Bird in a Blizzard as Shailene Woodley's Havoc, the Anne Hathaway yawner that showed her frisky, naked side in an attempt to break The Princess Diaries stigma she was trapped in. While it may have worked for her, obviously it did, Woodley has always been mature beyond her years, and so as she flashes her nude bod and embraces her character's raw sexuality, it doesn't seem like such a wild step for her; more like a natural progression. It helps that the film is directed by Gregg Araki, whose films usually have more going on beneath the surface than just stories of teen angst and sexual yearning.

White Bird in a Blizzard is based on the novel by Laura Kasischke, adapted by Araki and spruced up with his penchant for the surreal and slightly dysfunctional. Part mystery, part languid coming-of-age story, the film is set in the 1980s, a period that seems to be a particular favorite for Araki, although his hold over the time is purely surface in this case. Vivacious high school student Kat Connors (Woodley) comes home one day to find her totally unhinged mother Eve (Eva Green, at her insane best) fully dressed and sleeping in her room, appearing totally unaware of her surroundings. There's tension between them, but not the normal tension between a parent and child. There's sadness and a touch of hatred on both sides; nothing like the outright venom Eve holds for Kat's father, Brock (Christopher Meloni, tightly coiled), a sad-sack pushover who doesn't seem to know how to handle a house full of strong-willed women. Within a few days, Eve has up and disappeared without a trace or a good-bye note.

The mystery of Eve's disappearance is never far from Araki's attentions, but it lurks in the background of a story that's mainly about Kat's angry steps into womanhood. The chain-smoking, skimpy outfit-wearing Kat knows what she wants, and has no problem going after it. She's literally dating the boy next door, a shirtless dunce (Shiloh Fernandez) who suddenly seems disinterested in sex. So Kat gets what she needs elsewhere, banging the studly cop (Thomas Jane) investigating Eve's disappearance. Kat has no problem going into the gory details of their carnal encounters, describing them in earnest to her best friends (Gabourey Sidibe and Mark Indelicato), a pair of outsiders who happily eat up her stories with a spoon.

We come to learn that Kat used to be overweight, but has shed the pounds and is only now coming to realize her powers over men. But as we watch her develop into a sexual vixen, flashbacks walk us through Eve's deteriorating mental state. Eve wants to be youthful and adventurous again, and sees Kat as a vampire sucking the life right out of her just as much as her boring marriage. As she becomes more erratic, it only becomes more suspicious that nobody seems to be all that concerned about her disappearance. With a slightly out-of-phase tone that's less his "Teenage Apocalypse" trilogy and more Mysterious Skin meets Twin Peaks(Laura Palmer herself, Sheryl Lee, makes an appearance), Araki explores ideas of body image and female identity with an unusual spin, backed by all of the director's favorite '80s pop hits. But Araki has a difficult time mustering up a lot of energy for the story at times, punctuated by pointless therapy sessions between Kat and her shrink (Angela Bassett). It takes forever for things to get moving, and even when they do it often doesn't seem to be going anywhere until Kat's past and present converge in a twist that David Lynch would be proud of, even if it comes out of nowhere.

Eva Green doesn't get a ton of screen time but she's a dominating presence even though her performance is pure camp in the Mommie Dearest mold. She'd tower over everyone if it wasn't for Woodley, again showing remarkable range from insecure teen to confident woman. It's a role that may turn off some of her fans, especially those who know her from the ABC Family days, but at least Woodley has chosen worthy material to make such a bold step. White Bird in a Blizzard lacks momentum as a tawdry mystery, but it's worth seeing for Woodley, Green, and Araki's intoxicating sense of mood.

 Rating: 3 out of 5

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New Trailer for Ensemble Drama 'Reach Me' starring Sylvester Stallone, Thomas Jane, and Terry Crews

What you may not know about Sylvester Stallone is that he really has an artist's soul. Sure, in the movies he's either beating somebody's head in with his fists or blowing them to pieces with machine guns the size of small planets, but that's not who he is really. And in the upcoming inspirational drama Reach Me he gets to show that softer side we rarely get to see, for better or worse.

All the B-leaguers in Hollywood make up the Reach Me ensemble, which centers on a group of troubled people who are all helped by a mysterious self-help guru's book. Nobody seems to know who the author is, though, or that he has problems of his own. Tom Berenger, Kevin Connolly, Kyra Sedgwick, Nelly, Cary Elwes, Thomas Jane, Terry Crews, Danny Trejo, Kelsey Grammer, Lauren Cohan, Ryan Kwanten and Tom Sizemore star, with John Herzfield (15 Minutes) directing.

Reach Me hits VOD and gets a limited theatrical run beginning November 21st.

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New Trailer for Gregg Araki's 'White Bird in a Blizzard' Starring Shailene Woodley

You wept for her in The Fault in Our Stars and cheered for her in Divergent, but in White Bird in a Blizzard you may be a little bit turned off (or turned on) by the character Shailene Woodley plays. Directed by Gregg Araki, the guy who gave us the "Teenage Wasteland" trilogy in the '90s and helped re-establish Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a serious actor with Mysterious Skin, the film gained a lot of attention at Sundance due to the hypersexual performance by Woodley and the Lynch-ian tone established by Araki.

Following on the recently released poster a new trailer for White Bird in a Blizzard has been released and if nothing else it shows a side of Woodley nobody has ever seen until now. Woodley plays teenaged Kat Connor, a girl just maturing into womanhood, who is coping with the sudden disappearance of her unstable mother, played by Eva Green in full psycho mode.  Christopher Meloni plays her hapless father, while Thomas Jane is a local cop and sexual conquest, while Shiloh Fernandez is her dim-witted boyfriend who simply isn't enough man for her. Angela Bassett co-stars as a therapist while Gabourey Sidibe is Woodley's best friend. Despite the clear Twin Peaks influence the film doesn't totally live up to what Woodley and Green deliver, saying in my review that it "lacks momentum as a tawdry mystery". How audiences react to Woodley here is going to be very interesting because it could have some blow back on her bigger studio projects.

White Bird in a Blizzard hits VOD on September 25th and theaters October 24th.

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Sylvester Stallone, Nelly, and Terry Crews Look for Answers in 'Reach Me' Trailer

"There's no stopping someone that will stop at nothing", begins the trailer for Reach Me, a dramatic ensemble that features Sylvester Stallone in the rare role that doesn't require him to blow anything up or punch someone in the face. It's been nearly two decades since Stallone put on his drama hat in Cop Land, a film that was ripped at the time but has since been recognized as one of the actor's finer performances....at least compared to his latter Rocky, Rambo, and The Expendables efforts. And now Stallone is ready to show what he can do again but the trailer suggests the film may not be up to par.

Stallone is surrounded by a cast that immediately pegs this as something headed for Redbox with the quickness. Kelsey Grammer and Terry Crews (Sly's buds in The Expendables 3), Cary Elwes, Thomas Jane, Ryan Kwanten, Tom Sizemore, Tom Berenger, Kevin Connolly, The Walking Dead's Lauren Cohan, Agents of SHIELD's Elizabeth Henstridge, Kyra Sedgewick, ex-New York Giants fullback Jarrod Bunch, Nelly, and Danny Aiello star as a group of people who are all connected by a self help guru's book, but little do they know he's just a reclusive former football coach with his own problems.

John Herzfeld (15 Minutes) directed and wrote the script so if it looks like a poor man's Crash then he's the one to hold responsible. Reach Me will open on October 24th.

Reach Me Official Trailer (2014) Sylvester Stallone, Tom Jane HD by Newest Trailer

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Jessica Alba Lifts 'The Veil'; Helen Mirren is 'The Golden Lady'; 'Goosebumps' Adds Dylan Minnette

* Jessica Alba and Thomas Jane will star in The Veil, a supernatural thriller with some interesting talent behind the camera. Robert Ben Garant (Night at the Museum) wrote the screenplay with Phil Joanou (Gridiron Gang) directing the story which begins "30 years ago, when members of a religious cult known as Heaven's Veil take their own lives. The truth behind what really happened remains buried deep in the memory of the sole survivor, a five-year-old girl, who returns to the compound with a documentary crew as an adult. They soon discover something that is far more terrifying than anything they could have imagined." Alba's been keeping plenty busy and has the teen assassin film Barely Lethal coming up, plus rom-com How to Make Love Like an Englishman, and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Jane gets it on with Shailene Woodley in White Bird in a Blizzard, and co-stars with John Cusack in Drive Hard. [THR]

* Here's one to keep an eye on as a potential Oscars favorite. Helen Mirren is in early talks to star in The Golden Lady, an art world drama directed by My Week with Marilyn's Simon Curtis. Mirren would play real life figure Maria Altmann, a Jewish refugee who mounted a successful legal campaign to reclaim priceless pieces of art stolen from her family by the Nazis.  Among these were a collection by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, which included the Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, sold just a few years ago for $135M. [DailyMail]

* With Jack Black already confirmed to play author R.L. Stine in an adaptation of his Goosebumps series, his two young co-stars have now been found. Dylan Minnette, most recently seen in Prisoners, and Odeya Rush (The Odd Life of Timothy Green) have come aboard the film to be directed by Rob Letterman. Minnette will play "Zach Cooper, who moves with his family move from NY to to the idyllic town of Greendale, MD, where his secretive new neighbor turns out to be author R.L. Stine (Black). When the many, many demons in Stine’s mind are set free by Slappy, a demonic ventriloquist’s dummy, it’s up to Zach and Stine’s niece Hannah (Odeya Rush) to put the evil genies back in the bottle." [Deadline]

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John Cusack and Thomas Jane Getaway in Trailer for 'Drive Hard'

Okay, so you see a title like Drive Hard and find out that it involves a former race car driver and an escaping criminal, the natural assumption is that it's some sorta unholy spawn of Drive Angry and Die Hard. Well, that's not totally correct; there's also a little bit of Grosse Pointe Blank in there.

The first trailer for Drive Hard is here and one has to wonder why in the world John Cusack and Thomas Jane are a part of it. It certainly can't be the director, Brian Trenchard-Smith, whose filmography boasts such gems as Leprechaun 4: In Space and DC 9/11: Time of Crisis. Yeah, he's one of THOSE directors. The story has Jane as a former racing champion forced to become the getaway driver for Cusack's bank robber, with the latter actor basically riffing on the sort of characters he played a decade ago.

Maybe there's some fun to be had with this, but we won't know until Drive Hard gets a release date.


Drive Hard - Trailer VO - avec John Cusack (HD) by Reviewer.fr

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Sundance Review: Gregg Araki's 'White Bird in a Blizzard' Starring Shailene Woodley

It's easy to dismiss White Bird in a Blizzard as Shailene Woodley's Havoc, the Anne Hathaway yawner that showed her frisky, naked side in an attempt to break The Princess Diaries stigma she was trapped in. While it may have worked for her, obviously it did, Woodley has always been mature beyond her years, and so as she flashes her nude bod and embraces her character's raw sexuality, it doesn't seem like such a wild step for her; more like a natural progression. It helps that the film is directed by Gregg Araki, whose films usually have more going on beneath the surface than just stories of teen angst and sexual yearning.

White Bird in a Blizzard is based on the novel by Laura Kasischke, adapted by Araki and spruced up with his penchant for the surreal and slightly dysfunctional. Part mystery, part languid coming-of-age story, the film is set in the 1980s, a period that seems to be a particular favorite for Araki, although his hold over the time is purely surface in this case. Vivacious high school student Kat Connors (Woodley) comes home one day to find her totally unhinged mother Eve (Eva Green, at her insane best) fully dressed and sleeping in her room, appearing totally unaware of her surroundings. There's tension between them, but not the normal tension between a parent and child. There's sadness and a touch of hatred on both sides. Nothing like the outright venom Eve holds for Kat's father, Brock (Christopher Meloni, tightly coiled), a sad-sack pushover who doesn't seem to know how to handle a house full of strong-willed women. Within a few days, Eve has up and disappeared without a trace or a good-bye note.

The mystery of Eve's disappearance is never far from Araki's attentions, but it lurks in the background of a story that's mainly about Kat's angry steps into womanhood. The chain-smoking, skimpy outfit-wearing Kat knows what she wants, and has no problem going after it. She's literally dating the boy next door, a shirtless dunce (Shiloh Fernandez) who suddenly seems disinterested in sex. So Kat gets what she needs elsewhere, banging the studly cop (Thomas Jane) investigating Eve's disappearance. Kat has no problem going into the gory details of their carnal encounters, describing them in earnest to her best friends (Gabourey Sidibe and Mark Indelicato), a pair of outsiders who happily eat up her stories with a spoon.

We come to learn that Kat used to be overweight, but has shed the pounds and is only now coming to realize her powers over men. But as we watch her develop into a sexual vixen, flashbacks walk us through Eve's deteriorating mental state. Eve wants to be youthful and adventurous again, and sees Kat as a vampire sucking the life right out of her just as much as her boring marriage. As she becomes more erratic, it only becomes more suspicious that nobody seems to be all that concerned about her disappearance. With a slightly out-of-phase tone that's less his "Teenage Apocalypse" trilogy and more MysteriousSkin meets Twin Peaks (Laura Palmer herself, Sheryl Lee, makes an appearance), Araki explores ideas of body image and female identity with an unusual spin, backed by all of the director's favorite '80s pop hits. But Araki has a difficult time mustering up a lot of energy for the story at times, punctuated by pointless therapy sessions between Kat and her shrink (Angela Bassett). It takes forever for things to get moving, and even when they do it often doesn't seem to be going anywhere until Kat's past and present converge in a twist that David Lynch would be proud of, even if it comes out of nowhere.

Eva Green doesn't get a ton of screen time but she's a dominating presence even though her performance is pure camp in the Mommie Dearest mold. She'd tower over everyone if it wasn't for Woodley, again showing remarkable range from insecure teen to confident woman. It's a role that may turn off some of her fans, especially those who know her from the ABC Family days, but at least Woodley has chosen worthy material to make such a bold step. White Bird in a Blizzard lacks momentum as a tawdry mystery, but it's worth seeing for Woodley, Green, and Araki's intoxicating sense of mood.

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First Trailer for 'White Bird in a Blizzard' with Shailene Woodley and Eva Green

Now that Sundance has revealed its full festival slate of movies, there are a few that arrive with considerably more buzz than others. One that will surely open to jam-packed screenings is Gregg Araki's White Bird in a Blizzard, which has Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, Gabourey Sidibe, Thomas Jane, Christopher Meloni, and Shiloh Fernandez starring in the adaptation of Laura Kasischke's novel.

With its debut now only a couple of weeks ago, the first trailer has been released, suggesting this is Araki more in Mysterious Skin territory than Kaboom. Woodley plays Kat Connors, a young woman whose life is upended when her troubled mother (Green) sudden disappears. It's a little odd seeing the 33-year-old Green playing mom to the 22-year-old Woodley, but otherwise this looks extremely promising.

Araki will be shopping for distributors when White Bird in a Blizzard plays at Park City next month.


White Bird In a Blizzard Trailer VO by Sébastien Boulogne

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Billy Bob Thornton, James Marsden, and Thomas Jane will battle wild bears in 'Red Machine'

We Bought A Zoo might be the last time we see a happy union between humans and animals on screen for awhile. Next weeks sees the release of The Grey, which has a bunch of feral wolves stalking the one man you know can whup their furry asses: Liam Neeson. It's actually not quite the film you think it is, but I'll save that for my review next week. Now we'll get a chance to see another aging actor do a little damage to a deranged Yogi Bear, as Billy Bob Thornton has signed on to star in the action flick, Red Machine.

He'll be joined by James Marsden and Thomas Jane in the film directed by David Hackl(Saw 5). It centers on two estranged brothers who try to patch things up by going on a camping trip with their girlfriends. That is until they suddenly come under attack by a wild grizzly bear known as 'Red Machine'. Just dump the picnic basket and run! Billy Bob plays some sort of legendary bear hunter. Wait, wasn't Thomas Jane The Punisher? Seems the roles should be reversed.

This sounds pretty terrible, and it's unfortunate because I like all three actors. Marsden continues to do great work in bad flicks, and Jane has been a favorite since Boogie Nights. Now that Hung has been cancelled I hope he gets a chance at some better flicks, and not warmed over rehashes of The Edge. [Variety]

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The Queue: Killshot

What would it take for a film starring Mickey Rourke, Thomas Jane, Diane Lane, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, and Rosario Dawson to go straight to DVD? Surely something as simple as a mediocre script couldn't keep such star power out of theatres, right? How about poor production value? Would that do it? No. It needs the unholy trifecta, doesn't it? Ok, so let's throw in a pinch of phoned in acting. Not even John Madden, once highly acclaimed director of Shakespeare in Love, could save this turkey from tanking.

Mickey Rourke tackles the role of aging Native American hitman, Blackbird. On a job, he is spotted by real estate agent Carmen Colson, played by the beautiful Diane Lane. Obviously, Blackbird can't allow her to live, so along with his psychotic partner, Richie, they set out to make sure Carmen and her husband Wayne(Thomas Jane) can't identify them. Carmen and Wayne enter the Witness Protection Program, but that doesn't stop the threats and attacks from these two deranged psychos.

Killshot is based off the Elmore Leonard crime novel, but the script by Hossein Amini lacks Leonard's knack for creating realistic and gritty dialogue. Some of the scenes between Blackbird and Richie are just painful. Richie's character is so over the top annoying that I wanted him dead on the spot before he ruined the entire film Unfortunately my wish was not granted. Mickey Rourke appears to be sleepwalking through every scene as if seeming to not care is an acceptable way of portraying "cool". No, it just looks like you don't care. On the flipside, I rather enjoyed the moments between Carmen and Wayne, who are in the midst of a divorce but forced to stay together throughout this ordeal. It's a nice twist on a fairly typical situation, and some of the rough dialogue between them can be attributed to the marital tensions.

Unfortunately not much else works. Characters flit in and out of this thing without rhyme or reason. Rosario Dawson is here apparently to pick up a paycheck. Carmen's mom is dropped in as a totally nonsensical plot device, as she does something so stupid I'm hoping there's a deleted scene of her getting a lobotomy to justify it. The final showdown is quick and isn't satisfying in the least, and feels like it was thrown together haphazard. There's just not much this film gets right.

But atleast it's mercifully short.

4/10

Next up in The Queue: 2009's Powder Blue

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