Like so many nightmare scenarios in modern life, Central Intelligence begins with a Facebook friend request. In high school, Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart) was voted Most Likely to Succeed. He did not; the day before his 20-year reunion, he’s a low-level accountant. Too embarrassed and frustrated by the way his life has turned out (despite his relatively happy marriage to his high-school girlfriend Maggie, played by Danielle Nicolet), he’s decided to skip the reunion. That’s when the friend request arrives, from someone named Bob Stone. Calvin doesn’t know any Bob Stones, but he reluctantly accepts the friend request anyway. It turns out Bob Stone is actually Robert Weirdicht (say it out loud), who was involved in a horrific bullying incident back in high school.
HBO’s The Wire famously shifted focus to different corners of Baltimore between seasons, but did you know creator David Simon based the series on his real-life time as a police reporter? Or that many real public officials and criminals actually played themselves? Get ready to hit them corners, as the 37th episode of ‘You Think You Know TV?’ goes all in the game for HBO’s The Wire!
If that headline didn’t clue you in, then you should know that this is a trailer for Don Verdean, a new absurd religious satire from the guys who brought you Napoleon Dynamite (and some other movies that weren’t as well-liked) — not a trailer for a new religious movie. Although I’d pay handsomely to watch Danny McBride and Sam Rockwell play it straight in a faith-based drama.
With Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg continues the project he started with Lincoln: Using history to illuminate his vision of modern American values. But where Lincoln was about a “great man,” Bridge of Spies is about an ordinary one — an insurance lawyer from Brooklyn named James B. Donovan. In the late 1950s, Donovan was chosen by his peers to represent a captured Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel. But while most of Donovan’s colleagues (and even the presiding judge on the case) want him involved purely to give Abel’s trial the appearance of due process, Donovan actually mounts a rigorous defense of his client, at considerable risk to his reputation and even his personal safety.
When Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg last made a war film, they produced Saving Private Ryan, which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and features what’s widely considered one of the greatest battle scenes ever captured on film. They’ve worked together since, including on Catch Me If You Can, one of the best movies of either man’s career, but Bridge of Spies might be considered a kind of spiritual sequel to Ryan. That was Hanks and Spielberg’s World War II picture. This is their Cold War one.
When I met Ryan at a brand new Midtown Manhattan hotel, I explained this is the second time we had met (I always assume that no one ever remembers me) and, well, the memories of our last time together came back -- an interview that involved a misunderstanding over the phrase “America’s scorn.” (I had meant the scorn she might receive because her character from ‘The Office,’ Holly, was taking Michael Scott away; she thought I meant some sort of new project titled ‘America’s Scorn.') The last time I spoke to Ryan,'15 Awesome Minutes with Awesomely Awesome Amy Ryan.’ Well, here are 19 more…
The new 'Birdman' trailer only confirms what we thought after the first preview from a few months ago: this is going to be one of the strangest movies of 2014 and we can't wait to see it. Not only does it feature the great Michael Keaton once again playing a leading role, it finds director Alejandro Iñárritu trying something completely different after building his career on the backs of some of th
Fox Searchlight released the first 'Birdman' trailer, featuring Michael Keaton as a washed-up actor known mainly for portraying a superhero, and it is one helluva of a preview. Evocative and dark, funny and strange, the footage has done what all trailers set out to do: it took something we didn't care about and made us desperate to see it.