Monday 30 September 2013

MINT MONDAY


I don't mean to depress you, but this is the last Monday the 30th of September you'll ever have.

COLD CLIP
Brrrrrrgman

LOATHSOME LINE
Fuck Mini Babybels!

SCALDING SOUNDTRACK
Make The Lives of Others the life of you!

HELPFUL HOTTIE
Probs still would too.

LAMINATE LINK
Style of the season!

NEW POSTER FOR MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM


There's no way this hilarious attempt at Oscar-baiting is gonna get any major nominations from the Academy, but they're trying anyway. Sure, it stars Idris Elba. That'll do. 29/11 US (or 11/29 as y'all would have it); 03/01(/14!!) UK lol don't wait up.

US TRAILER FOR PHILOMENA


I haven't watched this trailer, having instead been informed by my dear Anonymous commenter that it's quite revealing! Revealing like it gives a lot away, not like Dame Judi gets her tits out. That'd sure put arses on seats, though!

BFI LFF PREVIEW: EASTERN BOYS


In the nine years since They Came Back, Robin Campillo's been up to rather a lot, writing, editing, and turning his debut film into the popular TV series Les Revenants. He's now directed another film, Eastern Boys, a drama / thriller about a man who frequents Paris' Gare du Nord in search of a partner, and gets involved in more than he had expected. Reviews have so far been strong on the LGBT-themed film, and Campillo won the Venice Horizons Award at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. I'm glad to catch this one at LFF when I'm there (next week! Already!) as I don't know when it's scheduled for release in the UK, or even anywhere else in the world! And though I may have had the occasional issue with Les Revenants (mostly only because it started out utterly issue-free), I trust Campillo on this one, and the below clip is promising.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARD ANIMATED FILM NOMINEES


Oh shit, I guess awards season's already started. The European Film Academy has announced their nominations for Best Animated Feature Film 2013. Not sure how they've seen all the European animated films of the year after nine months, but then most AMPAS members don't see nine films in the entire year, so the EFA's well ahead of them.

Best Animated Feature Film
  • The Congress (Ari Folman)
  • Jasmine (Alain Ughetto)
  • Pinocchio (Enzo d'Alo)

To be announced during the EFA ceremony on the 7th of December.

NEW INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS POSTER


Nice poster for Inside Llewyn Davis, which I'll be seeing at LFF, and which will be released, oh, some time, cbf looking it up.

NEW CAPTAIN PHILLIPS TRAILER


Yet more promo for Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips, but it's all been good, and I'm still looking forward to seeing this. It's based on a true story, apparently.

CLIPS FROM DIABLO CODY'S PARADISE


Looks like I might have been wrong. It seems that Russell Brand and Octavia Spencer may, in the end, be able to rescue Paradise from Diablo Cody and Julianne Hough. May be able to. It gets a US theatrical release on the 18th of October.

DREAMWORKS TO REMAKE LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON


After permitting his jury to award the Cannes Jury Prize to Hirokazu Koreeda's Like Father, Like Son, mean old Steven Spielberg has now snatched up the rights to the film as co-founder of DreamWorks for an American remake. No doubt it'll be gross. When was the last time someone remade one of his films, eh?

Sunday 29 September 2013

REVIEW - AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY


The irony is not in the title, though it may appear to be - the irony is the title. Little, perhaps nothing, in An Oversimplification of Her Beauty has been oversimplified at all, least of all 'her beauty'. I imagine Terence Nance would disagree with me on that. You know when you feel like you ought to champion a film's boldness, and celebrate its director's creativity, but you simply can't, because the film, basically, isn't all that good? I don't accept experimental film on the grounds of it merely being experimental. Finding what works in filmmaking is only an art because the human race does not boast the intelligence to be able to treat it as a science, but it is a science all the same, and like all scientific experiments, it's both got to succeed at what it aspires to succeed at, and it's then got to perform a function. For Nance, I haven't even the slightest doubt that it performs a most profound function. But for me, it does not, as rambling, rickety expulsions of dilettantish poeticism function only to send me into a distracted stupor. Nance certainly makes his point, even if he fails to make the many, sometimes thoroughly extraneous, points embellishing it, but then he devotes the most of 90 minutes to making it, when even nine could have sufficed. Is it sad that something that can so fiercely consume one man's life isn't enough dramatic sustenance for less than a couple of hours of my time? It's a little sad to watch, but then that's more due to the disappointment of witnessing a genuinely bold, creative director conducting a cinematic experiment such as this, and coming up so short.

HIDDEN TREASURES - MY BROTHER TOM, MY FRIEND IVAN LAPSHIN, MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE


My oh my what a selection of hidden treasures for you this week. That's just that, they all begin with 'My'.

MY BROTHER TOM (2001) - DOM ROTHEROE

This is kind of ultimate early-00s middle-class, Middle England rebellious teenage girl lifestyle porn times infinity. The film that introduced people to Ben Whishaw also ought to have introduced people to the terrific Jenna Harrison. It yields to a whole heap of cliches, but the dramatic effect is undeniable, and the biting earnestness in the performances is captivating.

MY FRIEND IVAN LAPSHIN (1986) - ALEKSEY GERMAN

A scattershot, surprisingly challenging ensemble comedy-drama from that most idiosyncratic Russian director, the recently deceased Aleksey German. Every time you think you know which route German's going to take you down, he swerves and races off in an entirely different, unexpected direction. German was a true original, and he'll be missed.

MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE (2009) - WERNER HERZOG

Werner Herzog rather puzzled a few viewers with My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, one of his most bolshily abtsract films, but then that's what he's here for. Michael Shannon is riveting and terrifying, and Herzog's direction as fabulously, peculiarly bizarre as ever. Proof (though it was never required) that Herzog has lost none of his brilliance, even over forty years after commencing his filmmaking career.

HUGH JACKMAN JOINS NEILL BLOMKAMP'S NEXT PROJECT - CHAPPIE


I can't say I'm particularly excited about Neill Blomkamp's Chappie, which, according to Digital Spy, concerns a robot stolen by gangsters who plan to use him for criminal purposes. And Sharlto Copley's gonna be in it, duh. I suppose neither have learned their lesson after Elysium. Anyway, Hugh Jackman's also gonna be in it. That's news, I suppose.

BFI LFF PREVIEW: THE MISSING PICTURE


Unquestionably one of the most unique and innovative films which I'll see at the BFI LFF next month is Rithy Panh's Cannes-award-winning The Missing Picture. Panh uses stop-motion clay animation set beside archival footage and narration to relate the horrifying story of the Khmer Rouge's atrocities in 1970s Cambodia. Following excellent reviews in Cannes, the documentary won the Prix Un Certain Regard, beating many more acclaimed features such as Stranger by the Lake and Fruitvale Station. And since then it has gone on to receive more critical acclaim in festivals around the world, such as Karlovy Vary and San Sebastian, and it screens at New York tomorrow (the 30th of September). Based on the premise alone, this is one of my most hotly-anticipated films of my trip to London, never mind the reviews an awards to date.

REVIEW - PRISONERS


Prisoners is by no means any great shakes as any kind of movie. Aaron Guzikowski's script gets lost in attending to one whim after another, all quite ably handled by the way, and it's only Denis Villeneuve's patient, sensitive directing that melds it all together. But at its heart, Prisoners is pulpy melodrama, and at its best when at its ugliest; there's a lot of ugly on display here, and it's damn good shit. Hugh Jackman's frantic father and Jake Gyllenhaal's police officer battle it out to see which can come across more repellent - Jackman ends up winning by quite some way. And Prisoners gets by on the conflict which it causes in our minds as we realise that this man, who convention dictates ought to receive our sympathy, is a real nasty, passively abusive piece of work, and then on our futile search for an appropriately sympathetic alternative. Guzikowski has created a most favourable panoply of characters - unusually, they don't each represent distinct emotions or motivations from our perspective, but are each imbued with their own complex knit of psychological features. And its covert method of establishing narrative clues as we're busy adjusting to the story's moral and emotional content is very smart. Villeneuve coaxes excellent performances from his cast, none of whom (not even Hugh) overplay their hand (until Melissa Leo drops the ball, alas). He makes some questionable specific directorial choices, though, choosing to cut several scenes shorter than they need to be, and sometimes stymying the film's desire to amply indulge in its pulpiness. And while Roger Deakins' cinematography is typically splendid, Villeneuve does allow the camera to linger a little too often to drink it all in, when a leaner, meaner approach might have been better suited to the material.

Saturday 28 September 2013

SONGS ON SATURDAY - SITA SINGS THE BLUES


There are some actual songs this Saturday. And they're actually songs. If you haven't seen Sita Sings the Blues (it's obviously got plenty of songs in it), you're in for such a treat! It's one of the most brilliantly innovative films of modern times, with far-from-modern music, courtesy (mostly) of 20s singing legend Annette Hanshaw. Two of the below clips feature Ms Hanshaw, but all three are quite fantastic. Check them out, then check out the film (whether or not you already have), because there are so many more cool things in it which these excerpts can't even begin to hint at.



SAN SEBASTIAN GOLDEN SHELL GOES TO BAD HAIR


Mariana Rondon's Bad Hair has won the top prize, the Golden Shell, at the San Sebastian film festival in Spain, and the host country's own Wounded won two top awards: the Special Jury Prize and the Silver Shell for Actress. Bertrand Tavernier's Quai d'Orsay won the FIPRESCI award, alongside the jury award for Screenplay.

Main Competition

Golden Shell
Bad Hair (Mariana Rondon)

Special Jury Prize
Wounded (Fernando Franco)

Silver Shell for Director
Fernando Eimbcke (Club Sandwich)

Silver Shell for Actor
Jim Broadbent (Le Week-End)

Silver Shell for Actress
Marian Alvarez (Wounded)

Screenplay
Antonin Baudry, Christophe Blain and Bertrand Tavernier (Quai d'Orsay)

Cinematography
Pau Esteve Birba (Cannibal)

BFI LFF PREVIEW: AT BERKELEY


Frederick Wiseman made quite the entrance onto America's film scene in 1967 with the infamous Titicut Follies, and has since then rightly established his reputation as one of film's foremost documentarians. His latest, in a long line, is At Berkeley, which I'll be seeing early on in my trip to the BFI London Film Festival. Good reviews surfaced when the film screened at both Venice and Toronto fests earlier this month, and it's screening at NYFF this very day! As you may have gathered by its title, At Berkeley is a chronicle of the workings of UC Berkeley, the historic and prestigious college in Berkeley, CA, and it's Wiseman's 38th institution-set doc. It's bloody long (244 minutes), but it's also bloody Frederick Wiseman, so chances are that it's bloody good.

THE GIVER ADDS TAYLOR SWIFT


After trying so hard to make supernatural romance YA adaptations work in the wake of Twilight, and failing so hard too, studios are turning their attention to make dystopian action YA adaptations work in the wake of The Hunger Games. Alongside next March's Divergent, starring Shailene Woodley, is The Giver, from Lois Lowry's 1993 novel. An impressive supporting cast already included Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Alexander Skarsgard and Katie Holmes, under the direction of Phillip Noyce, and country-pop star Taylor Swift has been added to that lineup. The film is scheduled for US release on the 15th of August 2014.

REVIEW - BLUE JASMINE


Blue Jasmine is Woody Allen's accidental progress. None of the signs that he is stretching himself, so far into his career, are present, yet this is a stretch. Maybe he, too, is looking the other way. Now this has come along, it makes you wonder what you saw in all his other films that you ever liked that much? That they were just good enough? Blue Jasmine puts most of them to utter shame. He still has a lot to overcome, as both writer and director - no good ideas how either to open or to close his films, and those occasional stagnant moments where the actors stand around but wading through dialogue remain - but get over it. Shakespeare had the same problems, and then some. For such a meticulously detailed character study (for it is that; plot basically doesn't exist), it's actually about two characters: Jasmine and Ginger, then the men in their lives. I think Allen grew to appreciate Ginger more as he wrote the role, and couldn't help but expand it. For once, he doesn't project himself onto any of these people, and the casting is truly perfect, so what you hear when those words exit the mouths of those actors is not unfitting garble that sounds like it'd read much better, but colloquy that sounds like real verbalised thought of real people. I could write an essay on the unfussy brilliance of the supporting men in this film - Bobby Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard, Andrew Dice Clay, Alden Ehrenreich, all so excellent. But the girls run this show. I marvelled at the talent of Sally Hawkins for a good half hour after seeing Blue Jasmine, and I think she's the best at what she does in the entire international film industry. Cate Blanchett delivers one of the great grand performances in modern cinema as Jasmine, a character too rich to work on film, unless the actor handling her possesses the level of instinct, diligence and force of Ms. Blanchett. She will surpass your expectations, no matter how high.

Friday 27 September 2013

FABULOUS FRIDAY - DRACULA


Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, from 1992, is one of the quintessential divisive movies. Some loathe it. I think it's pretty terrific. Principally, I think it's bloody beautiful to behold. Thomas Sanders' Oscar-nominated production design, the great Eiko Ishioka's Oscar-winning costume design, the equally great Michael Ballhaus' not-even-Oscar-nominated cinematography (what happened there?!) combine to make one of the most visually impressive films of the 1990s.


BFI LFF PREVIEW: THE LAST OF THE UNJUST


Claude Lanzmann's The Last of the Unjust is his sixth film for cinema, and his first in twelve years. He returns to the Holocaust as his subject, after 1985's celebrated nine-hour-plus Shoah, regarded by many as one of the greatest documentaries ever made, if not one of the greatest films outright, and certainly the greatest film about the Holocaust. Benjamin Murmelstein is interviewed by Lanzmann, and his role in the execution of so many jews at the Nazis' 'model ghetto' Theresienstadt examined. There are few, if any, documentarians quite like Claude Lanzmann, and critics responded well when the film screened at Cannes back in May; I failed to post a round-up of reviews for the film then, so here are links to reports in Variety, Slant, IndieWire and The Hollywood Reporter. It'll be one of the last films I see at the LFF, on the festival's final day, Sunday the 20th.

INTO THE WOODS FIRST LOOK - MERYL STREEP


Interesting how much makeup it's taken to get Meryl Streep to look like Meryl Streep. The last time Rob Marshall released a musical, it was Nine, and remember how that turned out (I quite enjoyed it, actually)? This adaptation of the popular stage musical boasts quite the all-star cast, with Streep as The Witch (duh) being joined by Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine, then Frances de la Tour, Tracey Ullmann, Simon Russell Beale, Lucy Punch, Christine Baranski and Tammy Blanchard! Glory be! You've no idea how long I've been waiting to see Meryl Streep and Tracey Ullmann in the same film! It's out next Christmas.

FOXCATCHER BUMPED TO 2014


After a glut of successful Oscar bait screened at Toronto and Telluride and picked up serious Oscar buzz, latecomers to the part have been deciding to forego it this time around and settle for a shot next year: first Grace of Monaco, then The Wolf of Wall Street (neither or which seem intended for prime awards season releases in 2014, though), and now Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher, whose trailer yesterday ignited a lot of interest online, and advertised its already set December release in the US, which it will now miss, of course. The trailer was promptly removed, which suggests that this decision may have been reached by yesterday. Foxcatcher looks like quality prestige product from Sony Pictures Classics, so it's likely that they reserve it for an Autumn / Winter release next year, but it'll have to be bloody good to overcome the fact that, by that stage, it'll have been somewhat sitting on Sony's shelf for well over a year.

REVIEW - CLOSED CIRCUIT


I hope nobody reading this is expecting objectivity. Actually, I lie - I don't hope, because I don't care either way. Still, you're not going to get it. I'll forgive a melodramatic teen romance / abstinence commercial very little, but I'll forgive a plot-heavy legal thriller very much. Closed Circuit is a plot-heavy legal thriller, so it starts life, in my head, with four stars already on the table. Eric Bana plays the defence lawyer for a suspected terrorist accused of participating in a plot that killed 120 people in London; Rebecca Hall plays his special advocate. Closed Circuit follows them as they individually dig for details that could help their client's case, while under apparently unrelenting surveillance. They're being managed, so it's inevitably going to take a major feat of legal, or personal, manoeuvering to break the closed circuit in which they have unfortunately found themselves. I just love films like these, with narratives that are complex yet succinctly communicated, only fleetingly, if at all, abandoning head for heart, yet establishing an atmosphere of paranoia and tension pretty much out of existing, simply. And if you see half of this coming, the other half is hot on its heels to sneak up and surprise you, just as you settled into complacency. There are blemishes galore - John Crowley directs with a desperate dearth of imagination and a remarkable blindness to the requirements of the script, Eric Bana is a flimsy lead with a ropey accent, and the crude ending is nauseatingly optimistic - but, like I said, I'll forgive a plot-heavy legal thriller very much. And I do. So Closed Circuit couldn't quite keep all four of its stars on the table. And what?

Thursday 26 September 2013

FOXCATCHER TEASER TRAILER


You'll have to click le pic. I like it when Oscar bait comes a long that actually has a good shot at being bloody brilliant. How many nominations are we looking at, then? Well, is that Vanessa Redgrave I spy? There's one for you, at the least! US, prepare yourselves for the 20th of December! UK, queue up, you know you want to! 17th of January, alas.

BFI LFF PREVIEW: NIGHT MOVES


One of the most high-profile films that I'll be catching at the BFI London Film Festival is Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves. Reichardt has picked up a lot of respect on the American indie scene with recent hits like Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy and Meek's Cutoff, and she's one of the foremost female directors working in America today. The film received great reviews at Venice, and also won the Grand Prize at Deauville. Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard play environmentalists as they plot to blow up a hydroelectric dam, and as they deal with the consequences of their actions. No US release date (nor UK) has yet been set; Cinedigm will be handling the American distribution, and signs are that they may opt for a multi-platform release, potentially in the new year, which would put it out of this year's Oscar race. Should they decide otherwise, it might stand a decent shot at picking up a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.


NEW TRAILER FOR DISNEY'S FROZEN


When they say 'Rapunzel', they mean Tangled. And this is Tangled 2, I think... I much preferred the teaser.

FRENCH TRAILER FOR SNOWPIERCER


The French are definitely getting the full-length version of Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer. If the version we get here in the UK doesn't contain any Alison Pill shootin' 'em up in a pussy-bow blouse in a nursery, I'ma be pissed.

SUNLIGHT JR. TRAILER WITH NAOMI WATTS AND MATT DILLON


ARE YOU MESSIN' WITH ME?

THREE-HANKY THURSDAY - UNITED 93


It's actually 93-hanky Thursday. Poor James.


An unparalleled example of a film that makes you cry without actually trying to make you cry. It's just kind of inevitable that you will, such is the strength of the filmmaking. Paul Greengrass' astonishingly gripping film is as realistic a depiction of the fate of the fourth plane on 9/11 as you could wish to see, and the emotional force of the film is only intensified by Greengrass' staunch realism, as he refuses the opportunity to wring those tears out of you, knowing that they're bound to erupt all the same. An exceptional film.

GARY ROSS AND JENNIFER LAWRENCE TO RE-TEAM... TWICE!


Looks like David O. Russell's gonna have to find himself another muse hot piece of ass to perv over. Gary Ross directed Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games, and the pair now has a further two films together on the horizon. One of the two is an adaptation of Hannah Kent's novel Burial Rites, about a young woman in 1829 Iceland accused of murder. The other is, ostensibly, the more high-profile: a new version of John Steinbeck's East of Eden. You may remember Elia Kazan's famous 1955 version starring James Dean. Ross is attached, as is producer Brian Grazer, and word has it that Ross is keen to recruit Jennifer Lawrence to star as the mother of the two farmer's sons who compete for their father's attention. It's rumoured that Ross has plans to make two films out of the novel.

REVIEW - MOEBIUS


Indecent, but in good taste. Kim Ki Duk wrings all the hysteria out of this bizarre story of a small family tearing itself apart, without rubbing our noses in it. I still can't decide if it would have been more or less effective if he had, if it would have been more or less comical. Is this a moebius strip of a family unit, or just a moebius strip of a film: one surface, one edge, one basic point, one basic method? The point - that we are mere animals too, and anyone who's seen The Isle knows how kindly Kim treats his animals. We are driven by our impulses. Unrestrained by dialogue, these manic souls grunt and gurn and act on their most primal emotions. The method - sex and violence, all the time. Nasty, cartoonish violence, often shielded from view. Icky, clandestine sex, a product less of healthy sexual desire than of inbuilt sexual repression. These base creatures laugh and scream and act most irrationally, and we laugh with them, and at them, and some may even scream too (oh, and some may vomit. No rly). And all without mere mention of reason, even in the most fleeting and insignificant plot machinations. He's not trying to 'ground' his outrageous tale, to enable his audience to relate to the characters and their actions and their feelings yada yada... He's flexing his muscles as provocateur, not nudging naughtily at the boundary between propriety and vulgarity but ripping it to shreds and spitting on it, and maybe doing other unmentionable things to it, like eating its dick (again, no rly).

Wednesday 25 September 2013

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET DELAYED UNTIL 2014


The rumour surfaced online yesterday, but it has since been confirmed: Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street will not be released in time for the Oscars this year, and will instead be released some time next year. It's the second potential big hitter from this year's upcoming awards-bait slate, after Grace of Monaco, to bow out of the race in the last few days; The Wolf of Wall Street may be less dramatic, Oscar-friendly material on paper, but then it is Martin Scorsese, and he's pretty fucking Oscar-friendly. The last time a Scorsese film was delayed until the next year was Shutter Island - a very good film, but it was also Scorsese's first non-Oscar nominated fiction film in eleven years. He'll be heading up the Marrakech Film Festival jury in November-December, and is reportedly not yet finished on the film, working alongside editor Thelma Schoonmaker, as ever. This is far from his baitiest film of late, but it may not need to be. Expect to hear more from this one for many more months.

BFI LFF PREVIEW: NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY


It's 18 days until I pop over to London for the BFI London Film Festival; it kicks off on the 9th of October, with the opening night gala Captain Phillips, in its European premiere (Locarno winner Story of My Death and a restoration of Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast will actually be the first films to screen, but oh well). And I'm seeing 18 films while there, which is far fewer than I wish I could but that's that. 18 bloody good ones, I should hope! Every day until then, I'll preview one of those. Today, it's Norte, the End of History, Filipino auteur Lav Diaz's four-hour-plus Dostoyevskian drama. Critics have been enthusiastic about the film so far, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival back in May, and which has made several festival appearances elsewhere since, including Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Toronto and New York. The film, Diaz's fifteenth feature-length project, concerns a young law student, Fabian (Sid Lucero), who murders a moneylender and her daughter, and the effects it come to have on both his own life, and those of many others. It'll be the first film I catch at the festival, on Sunday the 13th of October.

CLIP FROM CLIO BARNARD'S THE SELFISH GIANT


Clio Barnard's second feature as director, The Selfish Giant, was positively-met by critics and audiences at Cannes. It's set for a UK release on the 25th of October, a month today!

VENUS IN FUR - POSTER AND TRAILER


Comment vous dites?

WHAT'S ON WEDNESDAY - SEP 27-29


By official 23-year-old decree, I command thee to go to the cinema this weekend and watch a film. Because I'm a right generous cunt, I'll provide thee with some suggestions.

BLUE JASMINE

America, this has been out for like twelve weeks out your way, so if you still haven't seen it, what on earth have you been doing instead? UK, this is set for release this coming Friday. With major Oscar buzz surrounding Cate Blanchett's performance, as well as several other potential nominations, and plenty of critical and commercial success already under its belt, this one's a must-see, as all of Woody Allen's best films surely are.

METALLICA: THROUGH THE NEVER

This one's for you yanks then. Nimrod Antal's concert documentary got some darn good reviews at TIFF (there's only one link there, k, but trust me, the others were all good too!) and it's receiving an IMAX release in the US this weekend. I'm no Metallica fan, but even I think this looks pretty good!

RUNNER RUNNER

This one's filler, then. Justin Timberlake, who's like 45, plays a college student, and Batman's got an Oscar. I'm not letting that go. Gemma Arterton plays a mute (or so 'twould seem, judging by the trailer), and The Lincoln Lawyer's Brad Furman directs. Out in the UK this week, US next week. Don't all rush out at once!