The new trailer for 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE has been unleashed. Check it out now.
Told in the breathtaking visual style of the blockbuster “300,” this new chapter of the epic saga takes the action to a fresh battlefield—on the sea—as Greek general Themistokles attempts to unite all of Greece by leading the charge that will change the course of the war. 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE pits Themistokles against the massive invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes, and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy.
The action adventure stars Sullivan Stapleton as Themistokles and Eva Green, as Artemisia. Lena Headey reprises her starring role from “300” as the Spartan Queen, Gorgo; Hans Matheson stars as Aeskylos; David Wenham returns as Dilios, and Rodrigo Santoro stars again as the Persian King, Xerxes.
The film is directed by Noam Murro, from a screenplay by Zack Snyder & Kurt Johnstad, based on the graphic novel Xerxes, by Frank Miller.
Opening in 3D and 2D in select theatres and IMAX on March 7, 2014, the film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE is rated R by the MPAA for strong sustained sequences of stylized bloody violence throughout, a sex scene, nudity and some language.
Writer/director Spike Jonze brings his distinct style and insight to this modern relationship story, HER, a film that takes an unconventional look at the nature of love. Here’s a look at the brand new trailer.
Set in Los Angeles in the slight future, HER follows Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive and unique entity in its own right.
Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice (Scarlett Johansson) who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
From the singular perspective of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Spike Jonze comes HER, an original love story that explores the evolving nature-and the risks-of intimacy in the modern world.
Written and directed by Jonze, the romantic drama stars Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix (“The Master,” “Walk the Line,” “Gladiator”), Oscar nominee Amy Adams (“The Master,” “Doubt”), Oscar nominee Rooney Mara (“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”), Olivia Wilde, and Scarlett Johansson.
(L-r) AMY ADAMS, JOAQUIN PHOENIX and director SPIKE JONZE on the set. Photo by Sam Zhu.
The idea for HER had been simmering with Jonze for years. “The initial spark,” he recalls, “was an article I saw online about 10 years ago, about instant-messaging with an artificial intelligence. I linked to it and I said ‘Hello,’ and it said ‘Hello.’ ‘How are you?’ ‘Good. How are you?’ We had a little exchange and there was an initial buzz of, ‘Wow, I’m talking to this thing, this thing is listening to me,’ and then the illusion quickly dissolved and I could tell it was parroting what it had heard before and it wasn’t intelligent, it was just a clever program. But that initial buzz was exciting. Eventually I thought about the idea of a man who’s having a relationship with an entity like that, but a fully formed consciousness, and what could happen, and used that as a way to imagine this love story.”
(L-r) JOAQUIN PHOENIX with director SPIKE JONZE on the set. Photo by Merrick Morton.
“There are lots of ideas here about technology and the world we live in, the isolation that it can create as well as the connections it creates, and the way we’re changing as a society,” says Jonze. “But as I was writing the story, I always ended up putting those themes in the background. The high concept always takes a back seat to the relationship between Theodore and Samantha. Every scene is based in their reality as a couple. We wanted to look at it as a relationship between two individuals and, through them, make a story that looked at love and relationships as complexly and from as many angles as possible.
(L-r) JOAQUIN PHOENIX as Theodore and ROONEY MARA as Catherine. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
“I wanted to touch on some of the needs and fears, the judgments and expectations we bring into a relationship; the things we don’t want to acknowledge, or things we pretend we don’t need, but need anyway; the ways in which we connect with each other, or try to connect and fail,” he continues. “We want to be known, but at the same time, are afraid of being known.
“Samantha was created to evolve,” he says. “And once she’s set in motion, like once we’re all set in motion, there’s no limit to where that’s going to take us and who we’re going to become. If you fall in love with someone, that’s the risk you take.”
HER will open in limited release on December 18, 2013 in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto, and go wide on January 10, 2014.
This film has been rated R for language, sexual content and brief graphic nudity.
The New York Film Critics Circle voted today for their picks for the 2013 awards at the Film Society at Lincoln Center. The awards will be handed out during their annual ceremony on Monday, January 6th at The Edison Ballroom.
American Hustle was awarded Best Picture and 12 Years a Slave’s Steve McQueen was named Best Director.
Cate Blanchett was selected as Best Actress for her role in Blue Jasmine and Robert Redford was chosen as Best Actor for All is Lost.
A Special Award was given to legendary filmmaker, Frederick Wiseman.
Full list of winners below.
Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary):Stories We Tell
Best First Film:Ryan Coogler – Fruitvale Station
Best Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel – Inside Llewyn Davis
Best Screenplay: American Hustle
Best Animated Film:The Wind Rises
Best Supporting Actor:Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club
Best Foreign Language Film:Blue is the Warmest Color
Best Supporting Actress:Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle
Best Director:Steve McQueen – 12 Years a Slave
Best Actress:Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine
Best Actor: Robert Redford – All Is Lost
Best Picture: American Hustle
Says 2013 NYFCC Chairman, Time Out New York’s Joshua Rothkopf “I’m very happy with the work we’ve done today. The complexion of our group guarantees some surprises, but we always vote from our hearts. It was an extremely strong year for American movies.”
Stephen Whitty of The Star Ledger will take over as the 2014 NYFCC Chairman with Marshall Fine of Star Magazine serving as the Vice Chairman.
Founded in 1935, the New York Film Critics Circle is the oldest and most prestigious in the country. The circle’s membership includes critics from daily newspapers, weekly newspapers, magazines and the web’s most respected online publications. Every year the organization meets in New York to vote on awards for the calendar year’s films.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 86th Oscars® . One hundred forty-seven films had originally qualified in the category.
The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:
“The Act of Killing,” Final Cut for Real “The Armstrong Lie,” The Kennedy/Marshall Company “Blackfish,” Our Turn Productions “The Crash Reel,” KP Rides Again “Cutie and the Boxer,” Ex Lion Tamer and Cine Mosaic “Dirty Wars,” Civic Bakery “First Cousin Once Removed,” Experiments in Time, Light & Motion “God Loves Uganda,” Full Credit Productions “Life According to Sam,” Fine Films “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer,” Roast Beef Productions “The Square,” Noujaim Films and Maktube Productions “Stories We Tell,” National Film Board of Canada “Tim’s Vermeer,” High Delft Pictures “20 Feet from Stardom,” Gil Friesen Productions and Tremolo Productions “Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington,” Tripoli Street
The Academy’s Documentary Branch determined the shortlist in a preliminary round of voting. Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles.
The 86th Academy Awards will be presented on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014.
Tune in to the live stream of Ben Stiller’s Handprint-Footprint Ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theater NOW and watch Tom Cruise introduce Ben Stiller as he receives this incredible honor.
Stiller stars and directs 20th Century Fox’s upcoming feature film, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, which opens Dec. 25, 2013.
Check out the exclusive footage from the movie below.
No one really knows the power of the private dreams inside our heads . . . until they inspire our reality. That’s what happens in Ben Stiller’s contemporary rethink of one of the most influential fantasy stories of all time – indeed the quintessential tale about the irresistible allure of fantasizing: James Thurber’s THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY. Stiller has taken that two-and-a-half page 1939 classic and opened it up into a 21st Century comic epic about a man who finds that his real life is about to blow his wildly over-active imagination out of the water.
This Walter Mitty (Stiller) is a modern day-dreamer, an ordinary magazine photo editor who takes a regular mental vacation from his ho-hum existence by disappearing into a world of fantasies electrified by dashing heroism, passionate romance and constant triumphs over danger. But when Mitty and the co-worker he secretly adores (Kristen Wiig) stand in actual peril of losing their jobs, Walter must do the unimaginable: take real action – sparking a global journey more extraordinary than anything he could have ever dreamed up.
Starring Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, and Sean Penn, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY will be in theaters December 25th.
Oscar Sunday is three months from today, March 2, 2014 and this year, it’s anyone’s game. The Academy has a history of playing up all the glamour and suspense, and this year should be no different.
As of today, GOLD DERBY‘s Top 5 Best Picture predictions for the 86th Academy Awards are: 12 YEARS A SLAVE, GRAVITY, SAVING MR. BANKS, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS and AMERICAN HUSTLE.
HIT FIX’s Top 5 are: GRAVITY, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, SAVING MR. BANKS, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS and INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS.
In what’s classic TV, take a look at the opening of the 43rd Academy Awards in 1971, featuring an introduction by Academy President Daniel Taradash.
The big A-listers of the day all appeared at the Oscars – Goldie Hawn, Jeanne Moreau, Melvyn Douglas, Ryan O’Neal, Leigh Taylor-Young, George Segal, Jennifer Jones, Lee Grant, Maximilian Schell, Ginger Rogers, Jack Nicholson, Ali McGraw, Robert Evans, Quincy Jones, Sally Kellerman, Jim Brown, Sarah Miles, Angie Dickinson, Burt Bacharach, Joan Blondell, Genevieve Bujold, Paula Prentiss, Richard Benjamin, Walter Matthau, Juliet Prowse, Glen Campbell, Merle Oberon, Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, Steve McQueen and Harry Belafonte.
Shirley Jones and John Marley presented the Oscar for Sound to Douglas Williams and Don Bassman for PATTON – which went on to win Best Picture.
For you real Oscarphiles, below is a list of the five Best Picture nominees from that year.
“Patton” also won Academy Awards for Best Actor (George C. Scott), Art Direction-Set Decoration (Urie McCleary, Gil Parrondo, Antonio Mateos, and Pierre-Louis Thevenet), Directing (Franklin J. Schaffner), Film Editing (Hugh S. Fowler), Sound (Douglas Williams and Don Bassman), and Writing – Story and Screenplay based on factual material or material not previously published or produced (Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North).
George C. Scott declined his nomination and the award, but Academy President Daniel Taradash noted that, “…a person responsible for the achievement cannot decline the nomination after it is voted. Actually, Mr. Scott is not involved. It is his performance in ‘Patton’ which is involved.”
Helen Hayes won Best Supporting Actress for AIRPORT. She became the first actor or actress to receive Academy Awards in the two categories honoring performers (she won Best Actress for “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” in 1931/32).
The Beatles won the Academy Award for Music – Original Song Score for “Let It Be.”
The Awards were broadcast by NBC-TV for the first time in 11 years.
The Awards presentation and hosting duties were handled by 34 “Friends of Oscar.”
The 86th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2013 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center and televised live on the ABC Television Network.
Ellen DeGeneres will return to host the Oscars for a second time. DeGeneres hosted the 79th Academy Awards in 2007.
The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announced nominations today for its 41st Annual Annie Awards recognizing the year’s best in the field of animation. The Annie Awards cover 30 categories and include Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Special Production, Commercials, Short and Outstanding Individual Achievements.
The slate of nominations for Best Animated Features this year include: A Letter to Momo (GKIDS), Despicable Me 2 (Universal Pictures), Ernest & Celestine (GKIDS), Frozen (Walt Disney Animation Studios), Monsters University (Pixar Animation Studios), The Croods (DreamWorks Animations), and The Wind Rises (Studio Ghibli and The Walt Disney Studios).
THE CROODS
Juried awards, honoring career achievement and exceptional contributions to animation, will also be presented. Three Winsor McCay recipients have been selected by the ASIFA-Hollywood Board of Directors – Katsuhiro Otomo, Steven Spielberg and Phil Tippett for their career contributions to the art of animation; June Foray Award – Alice Davis for her significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation; and Certificate of Merit – “I Know That Voice” (Documentary).
Winners will be announced at the 41st Annual Annie Awards ceremony on Saturday, February 1, 2014 at UCLA’s Royce Hall, in Los Angeles, CA.
ASIFA-Hollywood is the world’s first and foremost professional organization dedicated to promoting the art of animation and celebrating the people who create it. Today, ASIFA-Hollywood, the largest chapter of the international organization ASIFA, supports a range of animation activities and preservation efforts through its membership. Current initiatives include the animation archive, animation film preservation, special events, classes and screenings.
Created in 1972 by veteran voice talent June Foray, the Annie Awards have grown in scope and stature for four decades.
For up-to-the minute information on the Annie Awards, visit www.annieawards.org.
As we begin the month of December and gear up for the release of THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, check out these latest behind-the-scenes and set photos.
Under Jackson’s direction, the film was shot in 3D 48 frames-per-second and will be released in High Frame Rate 3D (HFR 3D) in select theaters, other 2D and 3D formats, and IMAX. Production took place at Jackson’s own facilities in Miramar, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand. Post production took place at Park Road Post Production in Wellington.
Tickets went on sale Thursday, November 21. Fans will have the opportunity to see the movie first at midnight on Thursday, December 12.
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is the highly anticipated second film in Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Midnight showings for the first film in the Trilogy, THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, took in $13 million in the U.S. The film ultimately went on to gross over a billion dollars worldwide.
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG continues the adventure of the title character Bilbo Baggins as he journeys with the Wizard Gandalf and thirteen Dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield, on an epic quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor.
Having survived the beginning of their unexpected journey, the Company continues East, encountering along the way the skin-changer Beorn and a swarm of giant Spiders in the treacherous forest of Mirkwood.
After escaping capture by the dangerous Wood-elves, the Dwarves journey to Lake-town, and finally to the Lonely Mountain itself, where they must face the greatest danger of all – a creature more terrifying than any other; one which will test not only the depth of their courage but the limits of their friendship and the wisdom of the journey itself – the Dragon Smaug.
As movie fans await the imminent release of the second film of THE HOBBIT Trilogy – and another epic dose of Middle-earth landscapes – New Zealand has taken a cue from Hollywood by unveiling a giant pop-up book of New Zealand in Los Angeles.
The country that provided the epic scenery that backdrops THE HOBBIT Trilogy movies has installed the world’s largest pop-up book – occupying an area roughly the size of two tennis courts and 50 feet high – in the grounds of the Beverly Hilton hotel, that shows how film fantasy becomes reality for visitors to New Zealand.
Actor Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins), at the Laketown set in the giant pop-up book of New Zealand in Los Angeles.
The pop-up book of New Zealand is on site for five days coinciding with the Hollywood world premiere of THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG – produced and directed by acclaimed Kiwi film-maker Sir Peter Jackson. It is divided into four sets representing new filming locations from the film – Hidden Bay (Turoa, Ohakune), Forest River (Pelorus River, Marlborough) Lake-town (Lake Pukaki, Mt Cook), and Beorn’s House (Paradise, Queenstown).
With original pieces of the actual movie sets and living features of the real landscapes, the pop-up book employs multi-media production techniques and film-making wizardry to show how the film fantasy is firmly attached to the real life Middle-earth landscapes of New Zealand.
Guests will literally step into the giant book and take a unique journey through four of the principal filming locations for the Trilogy, combining the actuality of the book, and the magic of the movies with the reality of the Middle-earth locations.
The giant pop-up book of New Zealand, located in Los Angeles.
Cast members of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on the New Zealand pop-up book: Aidan Turner, Evangeline Lily, Richard Armitage, Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, Luke Evans, Dean O’Gorman.
Authentic props used for the pop-up book of New Zealand include the giant wooden armchair from Beorn’s house, two-level waterside houses and a boat from Lake-town and the gigantic brooding bust of the dwarf king Thror that stood over the back entrance to Lonely Mountain.
Access to the pop-up book of New Zealand will be reserved for a series of invitation-only events, but a select group of lucky film fans will have the chance to browse the pages as part of a special public tour this Wednesday.
Jackson’s epic Tolkien-inspired productions of the LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT Trilogies have created a legendary fan following and been at the source, over the past decade, of a film tourism phenomenon for his home country New Zealand.
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG will be in theaters worldwide on December 13, 2013.
Here’s a first look at the new photos from Paramount Pictures’ TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION.
In the above picture, Mark Wahlberg plays Cade Yeager and Jack Reynor plays Shane Dyson with Bumblebee (center, as a highly modified, vintage 1967 Camaro SS) in director Michael Bay’s upcoming film.
Bay and Wahlberg teamed up earlier this year for the action-comedy PAIN AND GAIN. Also starring Dwayne Johnson, Ed Harris, Tony Shalhoub and Anthony Mackie, PAIN AND GAIN was based on the unbelievable true story of three personal trainers in 1990s Miami who, in pursuit of the American Dream, get caught up in a criminal enterprise that goes horribly wrong.
Left to right: Director/Executive Producer Michael Bay demonstrates a scene with Nicola Peltz (who plays Tessa Yeager) on the set of TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION.
Left to right: Director/Executive Producer Michael Bay discusses a scene with Mark Wahlberg (who plays Cade Yeager) on the Detroit set.
Left to right: Director/Executive Producer Michael Bay with Camera Operator James Skotchdopole in Wulong Karst National Park on the Southeast China set of TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, from Paramount Pictures.
The new Optimus Prime from Western Star (a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North America).
TRANSFORMERS 4 stars Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Jack Reynor, Han Geng, Nicola Peltz, Li Bingbing and Sophia Myles.
The film re-unites the filmmaking team from the hit franchise, including producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Don Murphy & Tom DeSanto and Ian Bryce; and executive producers Steven Spielberg, Bay, Brian Goldner and Mark Vahradian.
TRANSFORMERS 4 is written by Ehren Kruger, based on Hasbro’s Transformers Action Figures.
Paramount Pictures will release the film on June 27th, 2014.
The new X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST viral marketing campaign ties Erik Lehnsherr (Young Magneto) to the JFK assassination in November 1963. In this fictional experience, Magneto was connected and implicated in a mutant plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, thus being a “point of contention between humans and mutants ever since.”
In a mock interview, Magneto spoke to a reporter for the first time in fifty years.
“Whoever said that was Oswald in that warehouse?” he says. His voice is low. “And whoever said the killer was a man? And whoever said I wanted Kennedy dead because my brothers and sisters were being killed?”
The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.
The beloved characters from the original “X-Men” film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from “X-Men: First Class,” in an epic battle that must change the past — to save our future.
Starring Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult and Halle Berry, 20th Century Fox will release the action adventure in theaters on May 23, 2014.
Check out the latest photos from the movie below. For more updates on the movie, follow at:
