Central Florida native screenwriter Brad Copeland, a veteran of a lot of TV sitcom scripting gigs, has landed the job of adapting “Knight Rider,” the talking Pontiac cop show of the ’80s, into a movie.
Copeland also wrote “Yogi Bear.” Which further raises expectations.
Tom Rob Smith’s trilogy of thriller/mystery novels is about a Soviet era investigation into child murders that seem to be connected to someone politically connected, or high up in the Communist Party.
So “Child 44” bears a resemblance to both the novel and film “Gorky Park” and the old Peter O’Toole/Omar Sharif vehicle “The Night of the Generals,” about a Nazi investigation into the murder of a Warsaw prostitute that points to three German generals. That doomed, corrupt and ruthless regime mixed up in murder plotline.
Variety says that Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman has just been added to class up the “Child 44” cast. As a suspect? Safe bet.
“Unfinished Song” is a cute British senior singers dramedy all-too-obviously inspired by the 2007 American documentary “Young@Heart.” Round up some adorable retirees — “Old Age Pensioners, or O.A.P.’s” the Brits call them. Put them in tie-dyed T-shirts, teach them “The Robot” and let them croon through “Love Shack,” “Let’s Talk About Sex” and “Maybe (I’m Crazy)” in between deaths, health crises and the like.
It’s so impish and feel-good you want to pinch its cheeks and tell it “Aren’t you precious?” Which it is.
Thank heaven for the presence of Terence Stamp, the original General Zod from “Superman” and one of the legends of the British screen. All this bubbliness all around him and all Stamp’s character, Arthur Harris, can do is grouse and scowl in his best villainous glare.
Arthur indulges his wife Marion’s membership in a seniors’ chorus, The “O.A.P.Z.” He stands outside and smokes while she (Vanessa Redgrave) sings and socializes and prepares for her big solo. Arthur, his son notes, is careful not to “enjoy himself.” Can’t have that.
“You now how I feel about ‘enjoying things.'”
But Marion is failing, fast. She knows her man is just “a puffed up pigeon.” He reserves all his tenderness for her — instinctively reaching for her hand, tirelessly defending her from the strain of all this rehearsal.
“You going to give me a kiss?” she teases. “Might not wake up tomorrow.”
And one day, she doesn’t.
“Unfinished Song” is about Arthur, his put-upon mechanic son (Christopher Eccleston) and Marion’s choir director, the relentlessly upbeat Elizabeth, cheerfully played by Gemma Arterton, all freckles and smiles. Everybody here has taken on the job of getting Arthur through this, no matter what he wants.
Stamp, given a rare lead (rent “The Limey” sometime), shines in every scene — screwing up his face with impatient fury at every perceived slight, melting in Redgrave’s presence, visibly deflating with resignation at Marion’s collapse. He and Eccleston set off sparks as the judgmental dad and the judged son.
And Arterton has a nice vulnerability, stripped of much of her inherent sexiness for this part.
But the script is a real groaner, with contradictory character traits (loner Arthur has a group of mates he plays dominoes with) and abrupt leaps in the nature of relationships. The dialogue could have withstood a snarky going-over, too. If you’re going cute and cranky, the insults and zingers should be zippier.
But “Unfinished Song” manages a tear or two, and enough laughs to get by, even if from first scene to last the strain to stop just short of cloying shows.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexual references and rude gestures
Cast: Terence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arterton.
Credits: Written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams. A Weinstein Co. release
Running time: 1:33
For everybody who believes there are no new plots under the sun (as Vladimir “Morphology of a Folk Tale” Propp posited, there are 27 plots — in toto — since the beginning of storytelling), here’s a remake of a Steve McQueen vehicle.
“American Heist” is a retelling of the 1959 film “The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery” featuring McQueen. Hayden Christensen is starring, with Jordana Brewster, Adrien Brody and some pretentious pretty boy who thinks one name will do — “Akon” — also in the cast, according to THR.
The story? Two brothers, one fresh out of prison, are drawn into an “ill-fated” bank robbery.
Disney has named Ed Oxenbould as winner of the title role in this film of the popular children’s book, with Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner as co-stars and Miguel Arteta behind the camera.
Here’s a movie that sort of cashes in on that documentary of a few years back — “Young at Heart.”
Terence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arterton and several other Great Brits star in “Unfinished Song,” now going into limited release. It looks cute — which could be taken two ways.
Jim Carrey, who has been outspoken in his criticism of the NRA and gun enthusiasts since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, has decided that maybe making a violent action comedy before that tragedy wasn’t the best idea.
He tweeted that he won’t be promoting “Kick-Ass 2,” because he’s “had a change of heart.”
Carrey is in desperate need of something resembling a comeback — reduced to supporting roles, with big star vehicles a thing of the past. “Kick-Ass 2,” if it’s like the first film, makes light of violence even as it tries to show that there’s no such thing as a “Super” hero, and that bullets, beatings and stabbings can stop the bravest of vigilantes.
If you enjoyed “The Twilight Zone,” you saw his work. Or “Star Trek.”
His novel “I Am Legend” has been made into three films. “The Shrinking Man,” “Real Steel,” “The Box,” the list goes on and on for Richard Matheson, one of the true giants of American science fiction.
Other movie stars get into the profession for the fame, the money, the girls. Jason Statham just wants to be The Catcher in the Rye.
In film after film, going back as far as “The Transporter,” he’s played characters out to save a damsel in distress, out to rescue some woman in need of rescuing.
That’s the set-up in his latest, “Redemption.” But it’s more than that. And the fact that this isn’t the only sort of character he’s played, that he makes even relatively routine actioners like this one interesting is why it ‘s never been fair to compare him to muscleheads like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Van Damme and Seagal. He’s better than that.
Something happened to Sgt. Joseph Smith over in Afghanistan, something glimpsed in flashbacks partly shown as drone surveillance video. He deserted, went underground. And now he’s homeless, a haunted vet on the mean surveillance-camera-covered streets of London, drinking to forget.
Isabel (Victoria Bewick) is his companion, a teenager. Until, that is, a couple of hoodlums who prey on the homeless rob him and snatch her. He aims to get her back.
“We shared a box. We just kept each other warm.”
Sister Cristina (Agata Buzek) runs the soup kitchen where he eats on those nights when he’s sober. She’s his comfort and his confessor. When he crashes into a posh apartment and realizes the owner won’t be back for months, she is who he tells.
“You know, the boys say you’re an angel.”
Joe lays low and heals up, puts on the apartment owner’s clothes and drives his Mercedes. He takes a job, first as a dishwasher/bouncer, promoted to enforcer for the Chinese gangster (Benedict Wong) who owns the place. Sister Cristina ponders her dilemma, this damaged soul who tempts her to break her vows.
You have to make a lot of allowances for a film like this, the neat little coincidences that allow Joe to A) earn cash he can spread among the homeless, B) track Isabel and C) announce he’s Catholic and must keep his distance, but still lust after Sister Cristina. You have to think he’s a good bloke even after we find out he’s left behind a family, even after we learn his Afghan secret.
Writer-director Steven Knight plays moral relativism games with this tale, from start to finish. The nun accepts money from Joe, but is tormented over spending it on ballet tickets. Joe steals from the unseen owner of his flat, but the enforcer work allows him to pay the fellow back.
Statham, as always, keeps things interesting. He doesn’t speak for the film’s first fifteen minutes, and when he does, he doesn’t make speeches. He endures his usual beat-downs, which we endure with him because we know at some point, he’s going to take out the trash.
The script loses track of the main thread, but allows awkwardly charming scenes between nun and enforcer. She urges him to live a better life, he sets up a barbecue grill on the street.
“You used to feed me. Tonight I feed you.”
And even the brawls — which are righteously savage — have their comic touches. One diminutive brute is known for his switchblade. Joe answers with his own utensil.
“You tell me what happened to her, or I’m going to kill you with this spoon.”
The more correct title would have been “Retribution,” which could work for any number of Statham vehicles over the years. But “Redemption” is just different enough to make us remember “The Bank Job” or “Killer Elite” or that he’s about to give those fun-but-silly “Fast & Furious” movies a proper villain.
MPAA Rating: R for strong brutal violence, graphic nudity and language
Cast: Jason Statham, Agata Buzek, Benedict Wong,Victoria Bewick
Credits: Written and directed by Steven Knight. A Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate release
Running time: 1:40
This looks cute and mumblecore-ish, couples re-coupling over the course of a weekend, pals who work in a bar realizing they may be more than pals.
Nice to see Olivia Wilde get something light and interesting. She’s doing good work, but mostly in movies nobody sees. Kendrick is a star, Jake Johnson and Ron Livingston, reliable second bananas in most films they do.
