News: Ryan Murphy

Nip/Tuck writer/director Murphy has made a good break into movies with this week’s Running With Scissors, but it’s his next outing as writer/director for the big screen which looks all set to catapult him into the Hollywood big time.

Dirty Tricks, due out in 2008, is looking increasingly like a must-see. Set in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal which saw US President Richard Nixon forced to leave office in disgrace, it will star some of the best screen actors currently working, including Running With Scissors stars Annette Benning (as Washington journalist Helen Thomas), Jill Clayburgh (as former First Lady Pat Nixon) and Gwyneth Paltrow (as the wife of Watergate cover-up mastermind John Dean), through Meryl Streep (as the notoriously outspoken wife of US Attourney General and Watergate conspirator John Mitchell), Jim Broadbent as Nixon himself, with Sharon Stone and Brad Pitt making up the cast, though their roles are as yet unknown.

News: Annette Benning

After this week’s Running With Scissors, Benning will be teaming up again with its writer/director Ryan Murphy for his Watergate political drama Dirty Tricks. Playing journalist Helen Thomas – a Washington Press Corp veteran who reported on the White House for 40 years from 1960 through to 2000 – she’s unlikely to have an especially prominent role, but her presence even in a small part in a film is always a good sign of quality.

After that she’s likely to be taking a more major role in a new adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic play A Woman of No Importance. Whether this will be a period-set costume drama or a modern update is as yet unknown, but her co-stars will include Sean Bean and Lindsay Lohan.

News: Leonardo DiCaprio

Up for the Best Actor Oscar for his work on this week’s Blood Diamond, DiCaprio is continuing his recent trend for tip-top performances in major movies, and beginning to well and truly shake off his late-90s useless pretty-boy image. If all goes according to plan he could be up for another Oscar nod for his fourth team-up with director Martin Scorsese, playing the titular future US President in biopic The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. With a backdrop of late-19th century New York politics and the Spanish-American War of 1898, it sounds like it has all the epic scope Scorsese will need to produce yet another film the Academy will find some excuse to overlook, and all the drama to allow Leo to run wild. It’d due 2008.

In the meantime, DiCaprio is also signed to star in Blink, based on a series of short stories about how first impressions
affect people’s judgement, for Syriana writer/director Steven Gaghan, which sounds both interesting and promising, and looks all set to start his own action franchise by taking on the mantle of Peter Chancellor in the big screen adaptation of Robert “The Bourne Identity” Ludum’s political thriller The Chancellor Manuscript. Looks rather like DiCaprio is going from strength to strength at the moment.

News: Jennifer Connelly

Connelly seems to have been taking it fairly easy of late, with this week’s Blood Diamond only her second film in the last three years. She still seems to be trying to pick her projects carefuly, though, with the only film she’s got in the pipeline sounding like a potential awards-winning corker.

Teaming up with Hotel Rwanda writer/director and two-time Oscar nominee Terry George for Reservation Road, it looks like this drama about the aftermath of a hit and run accident, and how it affects two families, could provide plenty of scope for the kind of acting that always gets the attention of the people who decide on award nominations. Joining Connelly to vie for acting acclaim will be fellow Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino, plus two-time Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix, and rising star Mark Ruffalo. It’s set for a US release in November – just in time to qualify for the 2008 Academy Awards…

Review: The Fountain

UK release date: 26th January

You wait years for a film about ancient Mayans and then, like proverbial buses, two movies come along at once. Like Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, The Fountain is one of the most original and extraordinary films of recent times — though a story that features not only ancient Mayans but also a bald man living on a little planet inside a snow globe with just a tree for company is bound to attract accusations of pretentiousness as well as claims of genius.

This third feature from director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) stars Hugh Jackman as a man on a thousand-year odyssey to save his beloved (Rachel Weisz, in multiple roles). In the 16th century, Jackman plays a conquistador searching for the fountain of youth in the Mayan Empire in order to save the Spanish queen from destruction. In modern-day America, Jackman seeks a cure for the cancer that’s killing his wife, and in the 26th century he sits like Buddha beneath his cosmic tree, trying to figure out what it all means.

Some of the audience may be doing the same, but those who stick with the movie will be rewarded with a profoundly rich experience about the meaning of life, death, love and immortality. The performances and music brilliantly complement Aronofsky’s philosophical musings in one of the most haunting, perplexing and visually stunning films since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey.

Radio Times rating:

*****

UK cinema certificate 12A
Running time 96mins

Review by Brian Pendreigh

News: Darren Aronofsky

Since being acknowledged as some kind of directorial genius with 1998’s Pi, Aronofsky has only managed to get two more films to the screen – 2000’s oddball Requiem for a Dream, and this week’s equally unusual The Fountain. The Fountain itself almost never made it, after a much-troubled shoot, and umpteen other projects have fallen by the wayside.

As such it should come as no surprise that he’s got no definite directorial projects in the pipeline – he is, however, currently peening an adaptation of Lone Wolf and Cub, the cult Japanese manga series about a rogue samurai single father. It has already made it to the big screen as Shogun Assassin in 1980 – notably featured in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill – although that was merely a re-edit of the first two of a trilogy of Japanese films made from the comics in the early 1970s. A proper big screen adaptation could prove interesting, especially with someone like Aronofsky on writing duties.

News: Rachel Weisz

After this week’s odd sci-fi, The Fountain, Weisz’s turn in the comedy/romance Definitely, Maybe, written and directed by the writer of Bridget Jones 2 and Wimbledon will come as a bit of a break. But then it’s back to the experimental, with a role in cult director Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights, starring Norah Jones as a woman taking a road trip across the US, and co-starring the likes of Jude Law, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman and Ed Harris. She’ll be teaming up with Wong Kar-Wai again in 2008 for a remake of Orson Welles’ classic The Lady From Shanghai, with Weisz set to take the Rita Hayworth role.

Before that, though, it’s back to comedy, with a part in the Paul Giamatti and Vince Vaughan-starring festive bit of fun Fred Claus, due Christmas 2007, as well as another return to Africa following Weisz’s superb, Oscar-winning turn in The Constant Gardener. This time it’ll be a period piece, with Weisz playing the object of Colin Firth’s affections in the 19th century historical drama The Colossus,covering the final years of Cecil Rhodes’ regime in what is now Zimbabwe. Sir Ian McKellen will take on the role of the imperial hero/scoundrel.

News: Hugh Jackman

After this week’s The Fountain, and recent outings including Flushed Away, The Prestige and Happy Feet all having been released in the space of just a couple of months, Jackman’s really churning them out. His own X-Men spin-off, Wolverine, is due for 2008 as well – but it’s not all big blockbusters, as his lead role in Woody Allen’s Scoop (set in London but as yet not set for release in the UK) should attest.

Of Jackman’s other upcoming projects, most interesting are likely to be The Tourist, where he’ll play a lawyer who leads Ewan McGregor into a hidden world of sex and kidnapping, genius Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai’s 1930s-set The Lady From Shanghai (again opposite Rachel Weisz), and weirdo Aussie director Baz Lurhmann’s ambitious-sounding epic Australia, in which Jackman will star alongside fellow antipodean Nicole Kidman.

There’s also The Amateur, with Jackman playing a geeky CIA code cracker who turns himself into a killing machine when his wife is killed by terrorists, a small role in period piece A Plumm Summer, full-on action thriller Drive, with Jackman as a Hollywood stuntman trying to escape a hitman, romantic comedy Rebound Guy, and supernatural musical romance If You Could See Me Now – and that’s before you even start on the rumours of a remake of Oklahoma! with Jackman reprising the role that brought him such success on the London stage before Hollywood came a-calling.

Busiest man in Hollywood? He’s certainly a top contender. Does the guy even know how to say “no”?

Review: Babel

UK release date: 19th January

Acclaimed Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, working with regular co-writer Guillermo Arriaga, once again fashions an ambitious, harrowing narrative from seemingly unconnected stories. As if to top his debut Amores Perros (set in Mexico City) and English-language follow-up 21 Grams (shot in Memphis), Babel crosses three continents and employs a number of languages, including sign.

Two young goatherds fire a newly-acquired rifle from a Moroccan hillside, precipitating trouble for an American tourist couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) and a risky trip from San Diego across the Mexican border for their nanny (a formidable Adriana Barraza). Meanwhile, a deaf-mute teenager in Tokyo (Rinko Kikuchi) experiences familial, social and sexual frustration.

Deftly moving between these four strands, the film is grainily handsome, naturalistically acted (the Moroccans are non-professionals) and throws up assorted themes to chew on. But with one of the links predictable and another arbitrarily contrived, the whole isn’t quite as profound as it appears.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 143mins

Review by Andrew Collins

News: Brad Pitt

It seems Pitt can do no wrong these days. He’s got away with the divorce to become one half of yet another Hollywood golden couple, and now has a kid to go with it. But ignoring the tedious tabloid angle, his cinematic outings have been pretty impressive of late and all. After this week’s hotly Oscar-tipped Babel, he’s got an insane number of very pormising movies in the works, from The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button, alongside his Babel co-star Cate Blanchett and directed by his old Fight Club and Seven buddy David Fincher, to the much-anticipated western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, where Pitt will play the legendary gunslinger James, complete with ‘tasche and stetson.

Then, of course, there’s Ocean’s Thirteen – which will see all the usual suspected added to by Al Pacino, and which all involved have promised will be much, much better than the really rather dire Ocean’s Twelve, before he goes from frivolous to serious and political for Dirty Tricks, set in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, and State of Play, based on the tip-top BBC political drama that aired back in 2003. He’ll be taking on the John Simm role as a crusadingjournalist trying to uncover a major scandal – although it’s somewhat likely that the action will relocate from Westminster to Washington.

Then there’s a bit more frivolity with Chad Schmidt – where Pitt will play both himself and the title character. Why? Because it’s set in 1980s Hollywood, just as Pit’s rise to fame began, and the Chad Schmidt of the title is a Brad Pitt lookalike – who rather resents his doppelganger’s success.

But keep your eye on Pitt in the run-up to the 2009 Oscars – he could be worth a flutter for Dallas Buyer’s Club, due next year, where he’ll play an AIDS victim in the late 1980s forced to experiment with black market drugs in the hope of finding a cure. If they play it right – which looks likely as they’ve got Monsters Ball director Marc Forster in to direct – it could well be one for the awards.

News: Cate Blanchett

As you should expect from Blanchett by now, she picks her films carefully, so every one of the five she’s got in the works after this week’s Babel are likely to be corkers in their own way. Next to hit UK cinemas is Notes on a Scandal, adapted from the Booker Prize-nominated Zoe Heller novel of obsession, lust and blackmail revolving around two teachers – the other of which is played by Dame Judi Dench. Both actresses have already gained award nominations for their performances, so keep an eye out for it around mid February. Next up, in early March, will be the much-anticipated Steven Soderbergh look at the chaos and confusion of Berlin in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, The Good German, with George Clooney and Tobey MacGuire filling out the leads.

Then Blanchett will go back further in time to take on the role of Queen Elizabeth I once again for The Golden Age – a sequel to 1997’s Elizabeth that reunites much of the same cast and crew to look at the queen’s reign a few years down the line, and her relationship with Clive Owen’s Sir Walter Raleigh. Another to look forward to is the experimental Todd Haynes look at the life and work of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, where different actors – including Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger – will play different aspects of the musician. It’ll be decidedly odd, but could well prove odd in a good way, based on Haynes’ past outings.

Finally – and sadly potentially her last film for a while, as she has recently announced plans to go back to her native Australia to run a theatre – is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for director David Fincher. Based on an F Scott Fitzgerald story, it revolves around the relationship between a 30-year-old woman and a man who, at the age of 50, begins to grow younger again. After what he managed to pull with Fight Club, it’s just possible Fincher could pull that off…

News: Toby Jones

Odd-faced British thesp Toby Jones does a good job as truman Capote in this week’s Infamous, despite following a tough act in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-winning performance in last year’s Capote.

A leading role for this top-notch character actor is rare, but he’s got a fair few supporting turns in the works, like playing the Duke of Clarence (aka the future King William IV) in Michael Apted’s Amazing Grace, looking at the efforts of reformer William Wilberforce to end slavery in the British Empire during the early 19th century. It’s due to hit our screens in March.

Then it’s shift forward to the 1920s for Somerset Maugham adaptation The Painted Veil, a romantic drama set in Shanghai during a cholera epidemic, before leaping back to the 17th century for notorious director Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching, based around the life of Rembrandt – to be played, somewhat implausibly, by The Office‘s Martin Freeman.

Then there’s yet another historical drama – A Harlot’s Progress – but this time with Jones in the lead as artist William Hogarth, whose relationship with a prostitute helps inspire one of his most famous works. It’s due out in November.

Review: Black Book

UK release date: 19th January

Paul Verhoeven’s first film made in his native Holland since 1983’s The Fourth Man — after which he left for Hollywood and the likes of RoboCop and Basic Instinct — returns to the subject of the Dutch Resistance, which he first tackled in 1977’s Soldier of Orange.

Based loosely on a real character, Rachel (Carice van Houten) is a Jewish singer who, after seeing members of her party of escaping Jews massacred, joins the underground and infiltrates the local Nazi HQ, via the bed of officer Ludwig Müntze (Sebastian Koch). Verhoeven delivers a rollicking yarn that’s surprisingly traditional, if convoluted, and, as usual, nudges happily at the boundaries of sexual imagery. The performances are universally good and the bloody action is typically well handled, but while Black Book certainly entertains it lacks the cultural tensions and mischievous satire that characterise the best of his American films.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 145mins

Review by Adam Smith

News: Paul Verhoeven

He may have had a six year break before directing this week’s Second World War flick Black Book, but cult director Verhoeven looks to have got the taste for film again, with two more prjects lined up. The first, The Winter Queen, is a bit of a departure for the man best known for the likes of RoboCop and Total Recall – it’s to be a period detective story, set in 19th century Russia and England. The other will also not seem quite like the sort of thing for which Verhoeven is best known, being based on the novel Knielen op een bed violen (“Kneeling on a bed of violets”) by Dutch literary writer Jan Siebelink – a coming-of-age tale of religion and small-scale, small-town resentment and revenge.

News: Forest Whitaker

Whitaker’s been picking up awards and nominations left, right and centre for his turn as Ugandan dictaor Idi Amin in this week’s The Last King of Scotland, so far cleaning up for Best Actor with many of the US Critics’ awards.

Unsurprisingly, given all the praise, he’s got a fair few more – typically varied – projects in the works, from animated baseball family comedy Everyone’s Hero (the last directorial effort of former Superman Christopher Reeve) to a return to the world of fashion that he last visited in Pret a Porter for the drama Ripple Effect, about a fashion designer going through a crisis of confidence.

Then there’s more typically quirky, Indy-fick Whitaker fare, like The Air That I Breathe, based on an old Chinese proverb and starring Kevin Bacon as “Love”, Brendan Fraser as “Pleasure” and Sarah Michelle Gellar as “Sorrow” – Whitaker will play “Happiness”. Or perhaps another big budget potential blockbuster, like Vantage Point, a thriller about an attempted assassination of the American President told from five different perspectives (in a deliberate attempt to mimick the classic Kurasawa pic Rashomon).

Most worth looking forward to, though, is the next outing from screwball director Spike Jonze – Where the Wild Things Are. Based on the popular children’s story about a young boy who creates his own forest world inhabited by fabulous creatures, if they can get the animation right, this could prove to be something very special indeed. If you know the books, Whitaker will be voicing Wild Thing – which could well work very nicely.