Movie Muser

Have your say about cinema

Margot Robbie Up For The Taliban Shuffle – She joins Tina Fey

By

Margot Robbie must have made an impression on directors Glenn Ficara and John Requa on the set of the upcoming Focus, as Variety reports that she’s set to re-team with them for The Taliban Shuffle, which already has Tina Fey set to star.

Based on Kim Barker’s memoir, which follows her after she first arrived in Kabul as a journalist in 2002. At the time she barely owned a passport, spoke only English and had little idea how to do the ‘Taliban Shuffle’ between Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, her stories about Islamic militants and shaky reconstruction were soon overshadowed by the bigger news in Iraq. But as she delved deeper into Pakistan and Afghanistan, her love for the hapless countries grew, along with her fear for their future stability.

Tina Fey is set to be Barker, with Margot Robbie as a ‘hard-core on-air news anchor’ who will do anything it takes to get the story, including putting others in danger.

Ficara and Requa are directing from a script by Robert Carlock.

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:

Win The Exorcist On Blu-ray! – The 40th Anniversary Edition is up for grabs

By

When The Exorcist was first released in 1974, viewers were frightened out of their wits – and literally out of their seats. Now Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Academy Award® winning director William Friedkin’s suspense masterpiece that haunted and intrigued the world, with a new Blu-ray release featuring the Extended Director’s Cut and Theatrical Version with new special features and premiums.

Out now on Blu-ray, just ahead of Halloween, this 40th Anniversary Edition will include two new featurettes: “Beyond Comprehension: William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist” and “Talk of the Devil,” as well as an excerpt from Friedkin’s book The Friedkin Connection: A Memoir.

Order on Amazon today: http://amzn.to/1wMy01f

For your chance to win the copy of The Exorcist 40th Anniversary Edition that we’ve got to give away, sign in to the site below (or click here to register) and answer the multiple choice question (see below for more details on how to enter). The competition closes on November 5th, 2014, so get answering and good luck!

The Exorcist © 1973 Renewed © 2001, The Exorcist Extended Director’s Cut © 2000 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and William Peter Blatty . The Fear of God: The Making of the Exorcist © 1998 BBC. Package Design and Supplementary Material Compilation © 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Distributed by Warner Home Video, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment UK Ltd. All rights reserved.

HOW TO ENTER: This competition is open to all registered Movie Muser members who live in the UK. It’s free to register and obligation free, and once you’ve signed up to the site, you’ll be able to enter any other competitions we run, plus post comments, join in on the forum or even have your own film blog. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER. If you’re already a member, sign in below and answer the multiple choice question in the grey box, click enter, and you’re done!

This competition closes at 11.59pm on November 5th, 2014. Competition open to UK residents aged 15 or over. (For general competition terms and conditions, privacy policy and site T&Cs, CLICK HERE)

The Prize Finder – UK Competitions

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:

Avengers: Age Of Utron Teaser Trailer – Get an early look at the return of the heroes

By


We weren’t meant to get the Avengers: Age Of Utron teaser until next week, but after the trailer leaked Marvel quickly decided that rather than trying to put the genie back in the bottle they’d go with it and release official versions.

It’s certainly a big one, offering a great look at the movie, including new heroes such as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, along with plenty of creepily robotic bad guys and an Iron Man who looks like tank. It also suggests things won’t go well for everyone, and that even an adamantium shield may not protect you.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Marvel Studios presents “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.

‘Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction. Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision. Written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Kevin Feige, Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963. Get set for an action-packed thrill ride when The Avengers return in Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” on April, 2015.’

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:

This is Where I Leave You – Can sitting shiva be funny?

By


Death At A Funeral proved comedies set at burials aren’t funny – it proved that twice – and now we have further proof. Even if you’re in the mood for a schmaltzy family feelgood comedy this will stretch your patience to the limit. A hugely appealing and charming cast are completely wasted in Levy’s ‘comedy,’ which uses just about every tame gag going and has a curiously dated feel to it.

Jason Bateman is the everyman who finds his wife cheating on his boss, then learns his dad has died. Mum (Jane Fonda) insists that all four of her children come home for seven days of ‘shiva’ (dad was a non-believing Jew), and they have to sit together and thrash out all of their old issues.

Bateman is such a coward he hasn’t told mum he is divorced, while she is happy to drone on about how sexually adventurous her husband was and display her enormous new boobs. Tina Fey is the daughter who wants everything to be thrashed out (ooh, missus), and then there are the warring brothers, Adam Driver, a screw-up who has bagged a rich milf and got his hands on loads of cash and a Porsche, and Corey Stoll, the ‘ambitious’ one who is trying to have a baby with his nervous wreck of a wife.

They are all – surprise surprise – in therapy, and think it’s fine to drag up old stories and arguments, apart from Bateman who finds the whole charade nauseating. However he does have the chance of something with Rose Byrne, the old school pal who never left their little town and now runs the ice rink, meaning she can practice her routines every day. She too is on meds, which give her a ‘hilarious’ form of Tourette’s, blurting out whatever nonsense is in her head at the time. Kooky is what she is going for.

There are several problems here, mainly the paper-thin script and jokes that simply aren’t funny. Fonda’s revelations about her sex life to her cringing children just feels dull rather than shocking, and the boob job joke wears out pretty quickly. Worse there are the staples of this kind of feelgood comedy, such as the idiot savant opposite who Fey might fall for. The implication is that his brain injury has made him a better person – so why don’t we all go around having car accidents?

The performances suit the material, in that they all seem half-hearted. Bateman and Fey, who have enormous appeal, seem to give up halfway through, Fey in particular just looks vaguely bored with the whole thing. There are lots of stuff about dysfunctional families – at one point Fey says of her brothers “they are idiots but they are my idiots” – but it all feels so stale. Fonda meanwhile, still gorgeous, proves she doesn’t have a funny bone in her body.

There’s a line in David Mamet’s play Speed-The-Plow where a film producer shouts, “People just want to see the same film they saw last year”. No-one wanted to see a funeral comedy last year, and no-one wants to see one now. An absolute shambles that should have been buried at script stage, excuse the pun.

Overall verdict: Charmless, unfunny, poor comedy that hits none of its targets and wastes all of its acting talent. One of the year’s worst.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:

The Woman in Black: Angel of Death Trailer – Jeremy Irvine is the new Daniel Radcliffe

By


We’ve had a couple of teaser trailers for The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, and now we get the first proper, full trailer for the follow-up to the movie that became the most successful chiller in UK box office history.

There’s no Daniel Radcliffe this time around, with Phoebe Fox, Jeremy Irvine and Helen McCrory starring instead.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘England, 1941 With London in the midst of the blitz, two teachers evacuate a group of schoolchildren to the abandoned Eel Marsh House. Seeking safety from the bombs in the remote coastal location, the group instead find themselves facing an evil far more frightening when their arrival awakens the Woman in Black.’

The film is due out in the UK on January 1st, 2015.

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:

The Gambler Red Band Teaser – Mark Wahlberg enters a dangerous world

By


The first teaser for The Gambler – starring Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Michael Kenneth Williams and Jessica Lange – has arrived. It’s a bit of a change of director for Wahlberg after Transformers 4 and for director Rupert Wyatt, whose last movie was Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Jim Bennett (Academy Award®-nominee Mark Wahlberg) is a risk taker. Both an English professor and a high-stakes gambler, Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster (Michael Kenneth Williams) and offers his own life as collateral. Always one step ahead, Bennett pits his creditor against the operator of a gambling ring (Alvin Ing) and leaves his dysfunctional relationship with his wealthy mother (Academy Award®-winner Jessica Lange) in his wake. He plays both sides, immersing himself in an illicit, underground world while garnering the attention of Frank (John Goodman), a loan shark with a paternal interest in Bennett’s future. As his relationship with a student (Brie Larson) deepens, Bennett must take the ultimate risk for a second chance…’

It’s out in the US in December but no official UK release date has been set yet. Take a look at the teaser trailer below.

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES: