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Posts Tagged ‘Sean Penn’

 

Trailer Watch: Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin in Gangster Squad

Ruben Fleischer, the director of Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less, has taken a break from comedies and made what looks like an absolutely kick-ass crime drama, chock full of really strong actors: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Emma Stone, and Sean Penn.

Here’s the synopsis:

Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and–if he has his way–every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop…except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara (Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Gosling), who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart. Gangster Squad is a colorful retelling of events surrounding the LAPD’s efforts to take back their nascent city from one of the most dangerous mafia bosses of all time.

I liked (not loved) Fleischers earlier films, but this looks fantastic. The tone, the look, and the cinematography are all much more distinctive than either of his previous efforts. The film was previously slated for October 12, 2012, but was bumped by Argo, Ben Affleck’s next flick. There’s no official release date at the moment.

Apple has the trailer in HD, if you want to see it all big and stuff.

Trailer Watch: Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick’s new film, The Tree of Life, was apparently booed (and applauded) at Cannes, putting it in a (probably) small group of films that includes Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, Vincent Gallo’s execrable Brown Bunny, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s astoundingly beautiful L’Avventura. Manohla Dargis describes Tree as a “a beautiful if hermetic vision,” though, which — despite the many, many times I’ve disagreed with Dargis — I find encouraging.

While I can’t defend a film I haven’t seen, but I’ll point out two facts: a lot of people at Cannes get drunk (you have drink beer in French theaters, after all), and even French people can have crappy taste. Malick hasn’t made a film yet that I’ve found uninteresting. I’ve seen all of his features, and I especially love The Thin Red Line and The New World. Are his films also glacially slow and occasionally self-indulgent? Sure. But always beautiful, and always fascinating.

The Tree of Life is out in the US on May 27, 2011. You can read the film’s official synopsis after the cut.
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