Brad Pitt

‘The Big Short’ is a work of seething rage and trampled idealism

Now Furiosa is taking over Brad Pitt? Charlize Theron is no stranger to big roles and this next one was set aside for Pitt until he had to move from the project. Now, it looks like the part will be adapted for Theron, Deadline reports. The movie, The Grey Man, is an adaptation of the …

Seven, director David Fincher’s gritty nihilistic neo-noir about a serial killer who tortures and murders sinners based on the 7 deadly sins, turns 20 years old.

Unless you’re talking about Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters or Toy Story 3, it’s usually not a good sign to hear of a sequel to a long retired franchise, least of all from a new, upstart director (just ask Jurassic World). This week however a director started a project that might even be an improvement on the …

If you didn’t think Netflix could become any more powerful, get ready to be incredibly wrong. As reported by Deadline, Netflix has just obtained distribution rights to the film War Machine, which will star Brad Pitt and will be written and directed by David Michod (Animal Kingdom and The Rover). This is pretty big news for the popular …

There’s nothing short about the list of big name actors in the cast for the upcoming movie by Anchorman helmer Adam McKay. Deadline reported on Tuesday that Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, and Brad Pitt are set to join Melissa Leo and Marisa Tomei in McKay’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book, The Big Short: …

10. Waterworld Directed by: Kevin Reynolds It could be the flop of all flops. At the time, “Waterworld” was the most expensive film ever made. Starring Kevin Costner, “Waterworld” is a science-fiction/fantasy film taking place roughly 500 years after the polar ice caps melted in the beginning of the 21st century, effectively covering the entire …

20. Dead Man Walking Directed by: Tim Robbins Susan Sarandon earned herself an Oscar for her work in “Dead Man Walking,” a film directed by her then husband, Tim Robbins. She plays Sister Prejean, a nun who befriends a death row inmate named Matthew (Oscar nominated Sean Penn) as they confide in one another and …

Fury Written & Directed by David Ayer USA, 2014   Brad Pitt’s new tank drama, Fury, is an unrelentingly grim affair that strives for greatness and occasionally reaches it.  What could have been reduced to ‘300 in a tank’ has been expanded to a gripping human drama that values the soul just as much as …

It’s not even a week old, but Scott Snyder and Jock’s horror comic Wytches already has a film in the works Deadline reports. Snyder and Jock will be executive producers and Brad Pitt’s Plan B will produce. Image describes the series as: Across the globe, century after century, men and women were burned, drowned, hanged, …

With it being October, our site will be featuring lots of great writing on the Horror genre. This month doesn’t just bring the scares for me though, it also brings the postseason playoffs for my favorite sport: Baseball. While I won’t have as much on the line this year as my Braves played a sub-.500 …

All movies have rules, even parodies… especially parodies. Ranging from the virgin being saved in a horror film to the black person usually being killed first in the same genre, movies have limitations and constructs that they all must abide by. Accordingly, film enthusiasts around the world have seen enough movies to create lists of …

Both Soderbergh and Clooney have tackled many different questions over their careers, but together, they consistently aim to understand celebrity in all of its glory and danger. The pair seem to inherently understand the allure of movie stars, and their most successful collaborations are celebrations of those we elevate above the status of “actor” and to the level of pop culture Gods.

Read our appreciation of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Twelve here and here, respectively. * * * “I’m a goddamn American icon!” Depending on where you stand on Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen represents either a group of enormously famous actors going back to salvage the goodwill they squandered in the middle entry of the franchise, or that same …

Ocean’s Twelve has a reputation that will always precede it; some have called it an anti-sequel, and publications like Entertainment Weekly have dubbed it one of the worst sequels of all time. Though both reactions are, perhaps, understandable, neither is remotely accurate. Ocean’s Twelve is an inherently self-aware sequel, possibly the most self-aware follow-up in modern history. What Steven Soderbergh, screenwriter George Nolfi (whose original script, Honor Among Thieves, was completely unrelated to Ocean’s Eleven and was sold initially before that remake had been released), and the slightly larger-than-before ensemble cast did was make a sequel to a critically and commercially lauded caper film that was wholly cognizant of the fact that it was a sequel to a critically and commercially lauded caper film. Ocean’s Twelve toys with audience expectations, because to cave into them would’ve promised something potentially more disturbing and commonplace than what many perceived to be an ambitious creative flop: something boring.

Movie stars, as we know them, are not so much dead in 2013 as much as they’re no longer making movies. Celebrity has stretched far beyond film or television; people become famous now without having accomplished much of anything, just for being at the right place at the right time, or tweeting out the right scandalous photo to set afire the comments sections at TMZ or Perez Hilton. Though movies cost more than they used to—both to make and to partake—they are less frequently headlined by a man or woman whose very presence ensures bankability. A handful of movie stars remain, yet even someone like Robert Downey, Jr. can only guarantee a movie will make back its profit and then some when he’s donned his Iron Man suit.

In his later years, the novelist Cormac McCarthy has circled like a vulture around the theme of death, specifically its inevitable grip on humanity. No Country for Old Men and The Road presented very different worlds, both filled with men trying desperately to withstand the inexorable hand of the reaper, and eventually realizing that there wasn’t much left but to give into what comes for us all. Such an existential fear is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the foundation of McCarthy’s newest foray, his screenplay for the crime thriller The Counselor. Its director is the prolific Ridley Scott, and its cast is impressively stacked, but this is a McCarthy story through and through, which is mostly heartening news.

Welcome to our “12 Years a Slave” Reviews. Review #1 12 Years a Slave Written by John Ridley Directed by Steve McQueen USA, 2013 With Hunger and Shame, Steve McQueen crafted two highly divergent, yet equally distinctive character studies of men whose respective physical existences are defined by extremity. Hunger’s Bobby Sands stays true to his political convictions in …

It seems anathema for any zombie movie worth its salt to not be rated R for an excess of gore, and yet, here we are with the long-awaited World War Z, a PG-13 film chock full of the undead, but not much blood in any way. Deafening rumors of script problems aside, the real issue with World War Z lies not specifically with the writing, but with the overly jittery, often obscuring direction from Marc Forster. Even with Brad Pitt as the ostensibly heroic leading man, this movie doesn’t leave much of a memorable mark on the audience, just a mild headache.

John Doe’s apartment? As in the home of creepy, pervy Kevin Spacey from Se7en? Go ahead. Issue a worldwide “weirdo alert.” Sound the alarms, but I can’t help myself. David Fincher’s 1995 thriller still does a number on me to this day — just in a “feel good” kind of way. Good thing that doesn’t sound even …

Cool World Written by Michael Grais, Mark Victor Directed by Ralph Bakshi USA, 1992 Cool World is a fabulously fascinating failure of a feature film.  Say that three times fast.  There’s no beating around the bush, Cool World was a mature, perhaps even perverted, attempt at capitalizing on the eroticism of the character Jessica Rabbit …

The zombie apocalypse has been an oft-explored topic in film, with George Romero often considered the definitive voice, though not the only one, as filmmakers such as Zack Snyder and Danny Boyle have also put their own spin on the mythology. Marc Forster is the latest to try his hand at the genre, helming an …

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Directed by Gore Verbinski Written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, and Jay Wolpert Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush Captain Jack Sparrow is the worst thing that ever happened to Johnny Depp’s career. The prevailing wisdom is that the constantly …