This week’s episode of our podcast WE ARE MOVIE GEEKS The Show is up! Hear WAMG’s Michelle McCue, Jim Batts and Tom Stockman discuss the weekend box office, and next weekend’s releases. We’ll review SICARIO, THE WALK, ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST, FINDERS KEEPERS, BRIDGE OF SPIES, DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: THE STORY OF NATIONAL LAMPOON, and THE MARTIAN. We’ll also preview PAN and 99 HOMES. Michael Haffner calls in to discuss his film-going adventures at Fantastic Fest in Austin last week, and we’ll talk about Vincent Price and the Price-related events in St. Louis this weekend . WE ARE MOVIE GEEKS The Show is a weekly podcast and can be heard streaming at ONStl.com Online Radio.
“Sicario” means “hitman” in Mexico, as the audience learns at the start of the film of the same name. Although there is indeed a hitman in Mexico, little is straightforward in this mysterious thriller from Denis Villeneuve, the director of “Prisoners” and “Incendies.”
Those films are filled with shades of gray and uncertainties, and pivot on unexpected twists. Those who saw his previous films will know what to expect in pacing and tone, and that this Canadian director has a taste for murky, unsettling almost-horror film-like suspense. However, people who have seen the movie trailers for SICARIO and are expecting a straightforward action film with Emily Blunt kicking butt likely will be surprised. Blunt does play the central character, and she is indeed tough stuff, but the film she is in may not be the one you expect.
Blunt plays Kate, a fast-rising young Arizona policewoman who has been leading SWAT teams specializing in rescuing hostages. She lives for her job, and is idealistic about her work. When a rescue at a modest suburban house near the Mexican border reveals multiple bodies and a bomb, pointing to a sinister larger operation with links to Mexican drug cartels, federal authorities come in. Kate’s boss Dave Jennings (Victor Garber) suggests Kate as the local police officer to assist with a federal operation targeting Mexican drug lords. Heading up the operation is a federal official, Matt Graver (Josh Brolin). He says he is from the Department of Defense, or DoD as he puts it, but there is little that says military about the flip-flop wearing Graver. Although Kate is unhappy that her partner and best friend Reggie (British actor Daniel Kaluuya) is not included on the team, she goes in ready for action. But after meeting team members that include a mysterious man named Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) and a bunch of uniformed military specialists, Kate is frustrated to find herself being constantly told to just observe and given little information about the operation. What they are doing, and even who these guys are, is not at all clear – yet.
Both Kate and the audience are in the dark as to what is really going on, more like a mystery film, well into the story. The shades of gray and sinister, murky doings are more typical of taut international gangster/crime thrillers like “A Prophet” or “Gormorrah” than American action films. The extended uncertainty and unsettled, suspenseful nature of the film may not be what most American audiences expect, given how the film is being promoted. Nothing is given, and viewers are forced to figure out for themselves what is really going on, although Villeneuve eventually spells it out. There is plenty of action and violence but the suspenseful tone of the film is less action film than horror. This emotional tone is boosted by the film’s soundtrack, often little more than a low, uncomfortable rumbling suggesting a threat lurking just under the surface, one that occasionally explodes along with on-screen violence. Visually, shadows and eerie landscapes, sometimes dotted with scenes of violence, fill the screen.
The director builds tension with a sure hand. The acting is strong in this film, with powerful performances by Blunt and Del Toro in particular. We do not learn a lot about their backgrounds, but the essential character of each is clear.
Audiences looking for the typical non-stop chases and action are better off with “Mad Max: Fury Road” or “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.” “Sicario” has long stretches of dark, mysterious, dangerous doings that leave audience members on the edge of their seats, with ominous gunfire in the distance and occasional gut-wrenching violence. Viewers who appreciate the darker, murkier suspense thriller tone of European crime thrillers are more likely to enjoy SICARIO than those who want straightforward good guys and bad guys with plenty of car chases and explosions.
SICARIO is a good suspense-filled crime thriller, with an intelligent story, but the film’s departure from the image created by its ad campaign might create different expectations
SICARIOOPENS IN ST. LOUIS
ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2015
SICARIO is already being celebrated with stellar reviews and an exceptional 91% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. In honor of the film’s wide theatrical release on OCTOBER 2, WAMG is giving away passes to see the film!
In Mexico, SICARIO means hitman.
In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent [Emily Blunt] is enlisted by an elite government task force official [Josh Brolin] to aid in the escalating war against drugs.
Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past [Benicio Del Toro], the team sets out on a clandestine journey forcing Kate to question everything that she believes in order to survive.
A Lionsgate presentation, a Black Label Media presentation, a Thunder Road production, a Denis Villeneuve film.
Varèse Sarabande’s SICARIO – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack album features original music by Academy Award nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, PRISONERS). Director of Photography is Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN).
Watch the all-new featurette, which showcases the relentless world the film explores and includes an interview with Emily Blunt – discussing the depths of the Cartels.
WAMG invites you to enter for a chance to win a pass (Good for 2) to the advance screening of SICARIO on Wednesday, September 30th at 7PM in the St. Louis area.
We will contact the winners by email.
Answer the following:
Benicio Del Toro previously won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for which film?
TO ENTER, ADD YOUR NAME, ANSWER AND EMAIL IN OUR COMMENTS SECTION BELOW.
OFFICIAL RULES:
1. YOU MUST BE IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA THE DAY OF THE SCREENING.
2. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house. The theater is not responsible for overbooking.
3. No purchase necessary.
Rated R for strong violence, grisly images, and language.
Fans can also dive into the world of the Cartels themselves with the “Cartel Cipher”Twitter game,which puts users into the role of junior U.S. investigators looking to disrupt drug cartel activity along the U.S./Mexico border. Users play along in real time via Twitter to reveal coded messages and search for clues using familiar Twitter activities like tweeting, searching hashtags, sending Direct Messages, to unlock exclusive video featurettes.
PLAY “Cartel Cipher” Now:
1) Log in to Twitter
2) Follow @US_Recruiting83
3) Tweet “I want to #CrackTheCartel @US_Recruiting83”
Watch Emily Blunt in this brand new clip from the upcoming cartel-thriller SICARIO. (trailer)
From director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies) comes a searing emotional-thriller that descends into the intrigue, corruption and moral mayhem of the borderland drug wars.
When Arizona FBI agent and kidnap-response-team leader Kate Macer (Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt) uncovers a Mexican cartel’s house of death, her shocking find leads to profound consequences on both a personal and global level.
Kate is recruited to join a covert black-ops mission headed by a mysterious Colombian operative known only as Alejandro (Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actor, Traffic, 2000) along with special agent Matt Graver (Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin, Best Supporting Actor, Milk, 2008).
Even as Kate tries to convince herself she’s on a hunt for justice, she is thrust into the dark heart of a secret battleground that has swept up ruthless cartels, kill-crazy assassins, clandestine American spies and thousands of innocents.
The jagged line of the U.S. and Mexican border is now awash in some of the most pressing questions of our times – drugs, terror, illegal immigration, corruption and an escalating swath of dark crime that has left people on both sides frightened and vigilant.
Sicario explores the journey of an intelligence operation that pushes the rules to engage with those who don’t play by any.
Director of Photography is Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (True Grit, 2010; No Country for Old Men, 2007) and the score is from composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (The Theory of Everything, 2014; Prisoners).
Varèse Sarabande will release the SICARIO – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally and on CD September 18, 2015, the same day that the Lionsgate film premieres in limited release, before opening wide on September 25.
Debuting at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, here’s a look at the new trailer and posters for SICARIO.
From director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies) comes a searing emotional-thriller that descends into the intrigue, corruption and moral mayhem of the borderland drug wars.
When Arizona FBI agent and kidnap-response-team leader Kate Macer (Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt) uncovers a Mexican cartel’s house of death, her shocking find leads to profound consequences on both a personal and global level.
Kate is recruited to join a covert black-ops mission headed by a mysterious Colombian operative known only as Alejandro (Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actor, Traffic, 2000) along with special agent Matt Graver (Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin, Best Supporting Actor, Milk, 2008).
Even as Kate tries to convince herself she’s on a hunt for justice, she is thrust into the dark heart of a secret battleground that has swept up ruthless cartels, kill-crazy assassins, clandestine American spies and thousands of innocents.
The jagged line of the U.S. and Mexican border is now awash in some of the most pressing questions of our times – drugs, terror, illegal immigration, corruption and an escalating swath of dark crime that has left people on both sides frightened and vigilant.
Sicario explores the journey of an intelligence operation that pushes the rules to engage with those who don’t play by any.
Written by Taylor Sheridan, the behind-the-scenes team, who bring to life the unseen no-man’s-land that lies on, and below, the U.S.-Mexico border, includes eleven-time Oscar nominated Director of Photography Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (True Grit, 2010; No Country for Old Men, 2007), Oscar nominated Production Designer Patrice Vermette (The Young Victoria, 2009; Prisoners, C.R.A.Z.Y.), Oscar-nominated Editor Joe Walker, ACE (12 Years a Slave, 2013), Visual Effects Supervisor Louis Morin, Costume Designer Renée April (Prisoners, The Day After Tomorrow), Casting by Francine Maisler, and Music by Oscar nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (The Theory of Everything, 2014; Prisoners).
Varèse Sarabande will release the SICARIO – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally and on CD September 18, 2015, the same day that the Lionsgate film premieres in limited release, before opening wide on September 25.
Varèse Sarabande will release the SICARIO – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally and on CD September 18, 2015, the same day that the Lionsgate film premieres in limited release, before opening wide on September 25.
The album features original music by Academy Award nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, PRISONERS).
SICARIO debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, earning rave reviews for both the film and the score. Vanity Fair Magazine called the score “rumbling, evocative” and “he (Jóhannsson) has a wonderful knack for balancing eye-popping technical flourishes with more organic texture and mood.”
Sicario is Jóhannsson’s second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve, for whom he scored the 2013 film PRISONERS.
“Denis didn’t use temp music while editing, so I began writing the music with a completely blank slate. This was both daunting and exhilarating,” said Jóhannsson. “Like Prisoners, it’s quite tense and has a certain sense of dread, but the instrumentation is very different. While Prisoners had practically no drums at all, there is a lot of percussion in Sicario; I recorded 5 different drummers and did a lot of electronic manipulation of the recordings.”
A video posted by Jóhann Jóhannsson (@johann_johannss) on
Jóhann Jóhannsson is a Berlin-based composer originally from Iceland. His varied and eclectic output includes commissioned works for Bang on A Can, Theatre of Voices and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra as well as a collaboration with the New York-based experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison on the film The Miners’ Hymns. His debut album “Englabörn” appeared in 2002 and he has since released 5 solo albums on the labels Touch and 4AD.
Writing music for plays, dance and theatrical performances led to work on film soundtracks. Jóhannsson has scored more than a dozen movies, including The Good Life (Eva Mulvad, DK 2010), Varmints (Marc Craste, UK 2008) and For Ellen (So Yong Kim, US 2012) before his recent work with director Denis Villeneuve on Prisoners and Josh C. Waller on McCanick. His music has also found a home in art house films across the globe, from Lou Ye’s Mystery (CN 2011) to Janos Szazs’ prize winning drama, Le Grand Cahier (HU 2013).
Jóhannsson was awarded a Golden Globe in January 2015 for Best Film Score for The Theory of Everything, directed by James Marsh. His music for the film also earned Jóhannsson both Oscar and BAFTA nominations for best original score. (Interview)
In Mexico, SICARIO means hitman. In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is enlisted by an elite government task force official (Josh Brolin) to aid in the escalating war against drugs. Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past (Benicio Del Toro), the team sets out on a clandestine journey forcing Kate to question everything that she believes in order to survive.
“I was partly inspired by the spectral writing of composers like Gerard Grisey and Horatiu Radulescu while the percussive aspect of the score was partly inspired by the group Swans – I wanted to capture a kind of relentlessly slow and mournful but still ferocious and brutal energy,” Jóhannsson described. “I used a combination of 65-piece orchestra and individual soloists, combined with extensive electronic manipulation of the recordings, to create the score. The orchestral writing is textural rather than melodic.”
The highly-anticipated cartel thriller SICARIO released five “Lotería Card” Posters, paying homage to traditional Lotería cards – the Latin game that originated in Mexico.
The cards feature members of the incredible cast including Golden Globe Award winner Emily Blunt, Academy Award winner Benicio del Toro, Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin along with other images that capture the themes of SICARIO.
In Mexico, SICARIO means hitman.
In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent )Emily Blunt) is enlisted by an elite government task force official (Josh Brolin) to aid in the escalating war against drugs.
Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past (Benicio Del Toro), the team sets out on a clandestine journey forcing Kate to question everything that she believes in order to survive.
Directed by the critically-acclaimed Denis Villeneuve, don’t miss this powerful film in select theaters on SEPTEMBER 18, 2015, and nationwide on SEPTEMBER 25, 2015.
After receiving rave reviews out of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Lionsgate has unveiled the latest trailer, as well as a new poster and three new images for Denis Villeneuve’s highly-anticipated cartel thriller, SICARIO.
When Arizona FBI agent and kidnap-response-team leader Kate Macer (Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt) uncovers a Mexican cartel’s house of death, her shocking find leads to profound consequences on both a personal and global level. Kate is recruited to join a covert black-ops mission headed by a mysterious Colombian operative known only as Alejandro (Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actor, Traffic, 2000) along with special agent Matt Graver (Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin, Best Supporting Actor, Milk, 2008).
Even as Kate tries to convince herself she’s on a hunt for justice, she is thrust into the dark heart of a secret battleground that has swept up ruthless cartels, kill-crazy assassins, clandestine American spies and thousands of innocents.
The jagged line of the U.S. and Mexican border is now awash in some of the most pressing questions of our times – drugs, terror, illegal immigration, corruption and an escalating swath of dark crime that has left people on both sides frightened and vigilant. SICARIO explores the journey of an intelligence operation that pushes the rules to engage with those who don’t play by any.
The film also stars Victor Garber and Jon Bernthal.
SICARIO opens in select theaters SEPTEMBER 18,2015 and nationwide SEPTEMBER 25, 2015.
Earlier this month, we showed you the first photos from the upcoming film SICARIO.
Today you get a first look at the poster for director Denis Villeneuve’s searing emotional-thriller that descends into the intrigue, corruption and moral mayhem of the borderland drug wars.
Lionsgate’s drama will screen this month In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2015.
When Arizona FBI agent and kidnap-response-team leader Kate Macer (Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt) uncovers a Mexican cartel’s house of death, her shocking find leads to profound consequences on both a personal and global level. Kate is recruited to join a covert black-ops mission headed by a mysterious Colombian operative known only as Alejandro (Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actor, Traffic, 2000) along with special agent Matt Graver (Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin, Best Supporting Actor, Milk, 2008).
Even as Kate tries to convince herself she’s on a hunt for justice, she is thrust into the dark heart of a secret battleground that has swept up ruthless cartels, kill-crazy assassins, clandestine American spies and thousands of innocents.
The jagged line of the U.S. and Mexican border is now awash in some of the most pressing questions of our times – drugs, terror, illegal immigration, corruption and an escalating swath of dark crime that has left people on both sides frightened and vigilant. SICARIO explores the journey of an intelligence operation that pushes the rules to engage with those who don’t play by any.
With the screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, Villeneuve closely collaborated with editor Joe Walker, who recently garnered an Oscar nomination for TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, to carve out the film’s high-anxiety rhythms. He also reunited with PRISONERS composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, the Icelandic native known for his entrancing melodies and insistent percussion, who created a haunting aural backdrop for Sicario that matches the film’s fierce action and lingering emotions.
Earlier this year, Jóhann Jóhannsson received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score for his work on THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. Read our interview with the Oscar nominated composer HERE.
Villeneuve is currently in pre-production on two additional projects Story of Your Life, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker and the Untitled Blade Runner Project, starring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling.
SICARIO is a visceral inside portrait of the drug wars. It exposes a world of hard questions and even harder answers while testing human and emotional strength in a world where one is forced to grapple with emotions, desire and morality where there is no clarity and the only inviolable law is the law of staying alive to fight another day.
Also featuring Victor Garber and Jon Bernthal, SICARIO opens in theaters on September 18, 2015 (limited) & September 25, 2015 (wide).
Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro star in these brand new images from director Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming film, SICARIO.
From Lionsgate, the drama will screen In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2015.
In Mexico, SICARIO means hitman.
In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is enlisted by an elite government task force official (Josh Brolin) to aid in the escalating war against drugs.
Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past (Benicio Del Toro), the team sets out on a clandestine journey forcing Kate to question everything that she believes in order to survive.
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