Matt Damon

Director Ridley Scott shows amazing restraint as he scales back the pyrotechnics and emphasizes human ingenuity in ‘The Martian.’

The Martian is a fantastic movie — it cannot be stated quickly enough. Ridley Scott’s film about a man stranded on Mars after his crew evacuates without him is the director’s best work in years. The Martian features a stellar supporting cast, a well written script that’s clever and funny, and an Oscar caliber performance from a Hollywood A-lister at the top of his game.

One of Reese Witherspoon’s breakout roles was as the ambitious and persnickety Tracy Flick in Alexander Payne’s second film Election. Since then, the pair has yet to work together, but Deadline reported Wednesday that Witherspoon has joined Payne’s latest film, the much delayed Downsizing. According to The Playlist, Downsizing was first conceived back in 2008 …

Via Deadline, Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass will team up again to make a third Jason Bourne movie following concluding the trilogy with The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007. Universal has set the film for a quick production and a release on July 16, 2016. Not only that, this would place the as-of-yet untitled Bourne movie …

It is not too shabby in what the Northeast (New England) part of the United States has produced in terms of past and present actors/actresses making their show business dreams come true. Film careers can be a lot like ice cubes–they start out solid and cool but if you sit around in stagnation your efforts …

The Monuments Men Written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov Directed by George Clooney USA and Germany, 2014 The high-school history teachers of the world, or at least of the United States, can breathe easy, because they’ll have a new movie to add to their collections soon enough. Right before exam week, they can pop …

Behind the Candelabra Written by Richard LaGravenese Directed by Steven Soderbergh USA, 2013 Steven Soderbergh thoughtfully details the purported destructive indulgence of Liberace’s most intimate relationship in Behind the Candelabra. A film replete with the salacious dirt and glamorous high living of a legendary celebrity, this project is perfectly tailored to Soderbergh’s nuanced flair for …

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.

Hollywood history always makes for fascinating reading. Hindsight and whatnot. During a month in which Sound on Sight takes an opportunity to tip a collective hat in the direction of recently ‘retired’ workhorse auteur Steven Soderbergh, there is a further chance to reel back the years and examine a period of time when one of …

Slammed by populous opinion, 2009’s The Informant! has been ridiculed for being “dull,” with “laughs far and few between.” Although critically acclaimed with an IMDB rating of 6.5/10 and Metacritic score of 66, a staggering 42% user approval lingers over the film at Rotten Tomatoes, without any signs of it becoming a cult classic. Yet …

The most unsettling element of Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (which is, by any metric, a deeply discomfiting film) is its plausibility. The film has a clinical approach that underlines how possible its central crisis is and how powerless we would be to stop it. The film has a global scope and an all-star cast, but what resonates most is the idea that this could happen. Anywhere. Anytime. To any one of us.

A title card at the start of Neill Blomkamp’s second feature, Elysium, informs viewers that in its not-too-distant future the Earth has become unlivable, and that her richest residents fled the planet to preserve their way of life. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that the film’s next ten minutes consist of images of an unlivable Earth, whose richest residents have fled to an orbital platform to preserve their way of life. That’s the sort of film Elysium is: for as smart as its premise may be, and as smart as its director is, it doesn’t seem to think its audience is very bright.

Elysium Directed by Neill Blomkamp Written by Neill Blomkamp USA, Canada, and Mexico, 2013 District 9 offered the promise of a fresh new talent in writer-director Neill Blomkamp. Elysium doesn’t totally squander that promise, but at least raises the disturbing possibility that District 9 may have been a fluke. More likely, Blomkamp will be best …

t is with a significant pang of regret in 2013 that we bid a fond adieu to director Steven Soderbergh, but at lerast we have the smnall placebo of two remaining films from the incredibly profligate director, beginning with his penultimate film Side Effects. If you’ll excuse the pun I don’t wish to get too ‘side’tracked but I think there are a few crucial items to consider before we delve into the movie itself, a concluding episode to his career which is as expected a superb contemporary drama which springboards into other areas with the dexterous ease of a state drilled East German Olympic gymnast, namely what on earth could drive such a prolific and endlessly inventive cinematic soul into potential big-screen retirement?

Call it what you must, but if Steven Soderbergh is truly exiting the cinematic frontier for a while, Behind the Candelabra marks a very fitting and appropriate departure for the director. Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Alex Thorleifson and Scott Thorson, Candelabra is a rather direct biopic shedding light on the private life of Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his 6-year relationship with younger lover Scott Thorson (Matt Damon).

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 …

Promised Land Written by John Krasinski and Matt Damon, based on a story by Dave Eggers Directed by Gus Van Sant 2012, USA, imdb,  Josh Spiegel’s much more positive review I walked out of the theatre disliking Promised Land and the more I reflect on the film, the less I like it. On paper, there is a …

Promised Land Directed by Gus Van Sant Written by John Krasinski and Matt Damon USA, 2012 When people suffer through desperate times, someone is always ready to capitalize on their fear and confusion. This person, a con artist even if they have a fancy-sounding job title, has the offer of a lifetime, the promise of …

On December 14, 2012, a young man named Adam Lanza broke into a primary school and fatally shot 26 people in the small village of Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Twenty of them were children, aged 6 or 7. On that day, no matter where I went or what I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about the …

Though time will only tell if Baz Luhrmann is the right filmmaker to tackle The Great Gatsby, I remain a skeptic. The material may suggest a certain grandiosity that Luhrmann has proved to be able to bring to life but the story remains fundamentally simple and down to earth. The novel is highly critical of …