Posts Tagged ‘Matt Damon’

Short Take: Action-packed and smart, but perhaps too slanted

Director: Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum)

Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential)

Cast: Matt Damon (The Informant!, Bourne series), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges), Greg Kinnear (Flash of Genius)

Length: 1h 55m

Synopsis: The setting is Baghdad, Iraq, 2003. U.S. Chief warrant officer Roy Miller (Damon) is directly involved with the American takeover of Iraq by leading squads of men into hostile sites where weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are suspected of being kept and/or manufactured. After coming up short several times in a row, Miller begins to seriously question the intelligence that he and his men are receiving. Instructed to basically shut up and do his job, he instead takes advantage of when an Iraqi local offers him a tip about a meeting of high-ranking Iraq military officials by acting on the information first and relaying it later. Doing this gets him involved in a world of intelligence politics that he was not ready for, and that he may not be able to escape unharmed. Read the rest of this entry »

Christopher Plummer is this year's frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Continuing our Countdown to The Oscars, we are pleased to present our analysis of the Best Supporting Actor category. Like with this column’s previous entries, we examine each nominee’s chances for earning the esteemed Academy Award so that you the reader will have an idea of what to expect come time for the ceremony on March 7th. We here at Movie-Thoughts like to spur debate, so let us know what you think! Tell us if you agree, disagree, and why. In the end, it’s all for fun anyways, right?

Also see: Best Supporting Actress, Best Actor

Best Supporting Actor

We find that this year Christopher Plummer is the most likely to win because of the combination of his age/long tenure as an actor, the quality of his performance, the weight of his performance, the novelty that this is his first Oscar nomination, and the fact that the only thing he has decreasing his odds are the strong suites of the other nominees. Meanwhile, all the other candidates have various issues that could anchor their dreams of delivering a teary-eyed acceptance speech. Critical and/or press momentum haven’t been playing much of a role with this particular category, with the exception that The Lovely Bones (for which Stanley Tucci is nominated) is the only film relevant to this category that has received overwhelmingly negative reviews. With all of this said, let’s get to it! Read the rest of this entry »

Short Take: An inspirational sports movie unlike any other

Director: Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby)

Screenwriter: Anthony Peckham, John Carlin (book: “Playing the Enemy”)

Cast: Morgan Freeman (Se7en), Matt Damon (The Informant!)

Length: 2h 14m

Synopsis: After Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1992 and elected as President of South Africa after blacks had just earned the right to vote, he sought to inspire a nation that had a divided population and was suffering from economic hardship. That inspiration came from the national sport of rugby. Withholding uncanny knowledge about how to motivate the masses, Mandela’s key was to first properly motivate the national rugby team into advancing to the World Cup finals. Read the rest of this entry »

Joel and Ethan Coen ("No Country for Old Men")

The Coen brothers are planning to film a remake of 1969′s True Grit, which Paramount will work to release for late 2010, and actors Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are currently in final talks to join a cast that already includes fellow well-known actor Jeff Bridges.

Reportedly, Damon is to be cast as Bridges’ fellow lawman trying with the help of a 14-year old girl to catch a killer, to be played by Brolin. The Coen brothers claim that their completed script is more loyal to the Charles Portis novel of the same name which the original film is based from.

Source: Variety

Quick Opinion: Western fans should be very excited just from knowing the directors and short list of known cast members attached to this project. Bridges, Brolin, and Damon are all fine actors and have shown the ability to mold themselves into their parts time and again. I believe we can trust them to continue their streaks. What may be just as exciting as finding out that the Coen brothers are writing and directing is realizing that big, respected names like theirs are being attached to the western genre. Westerns have not been the most popular genre in Hollywood over recent decades, but they’re hardly dead. 2007′s 3:10 to Yuma was considered by most to be a solid effort, and had moderate box-office success by at least breaking even (cost – $50million, gross – $53million). The status of the western should get a boost from having Oscar-winning talent in the directors’ chairs, which if the genre is to make some sort of cultural revival is a darn good place to get started.

Director: Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brockovich, Traffic)

Screenwriter: Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum), Kurt Eichenwald (book)

Cast: Matt Damon (Bourne trilogy), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap series), Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men series)

Length: 1h 48m

Synopsis: The FBI decides to go after an agri-business conglomerate with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, biochemist/executive turned informant Mark Whitacre (Damon). Mark spends over two years building a case for the FBI, but as soon as the investigation gets public there turn out to be more secrets than anyone could have guessed. Read the rest of this entry »

Eastwood and Damon - "Invictus"

Clint Eastwood will direct Matt Damon in a supernatural thriller titled Hereafter, written by Peter Morgan. Eastwood and Damon will be releasing another film this winter (Dec. 11) called Invictus where the two developed a rapport. Morgan has written such nominated films like The Queen and Frost/Nixon.

Production is set to begin on Hereafter this fall.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

TIFF

ComingSoon.net has released a thorough preview of the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), listing a number of films that are supposed to have some of the most anticipated premieres of the year.

The festival’s status ranks among Cannes and Sundance, which means all the debuting films, and their filmmakers, will be vying for top distribution liberties from big and small studios alike. And bigger films, such as Soderburgh’s Informant! starring Matt Damon, will be seeking early Oscar buzz from critics.

Attending the festival is surely not a option for most of us, but stay tuned for what the word will be about these much anticipated movies.