Notícias

The “swashbuckling adventure” is a subgenre that became more and more antiquated as the spectacle of action movies evolved. It probably has less of an edge over westerns since the latter can still rely on gunplay, but sword-fighting films have roots in Hollywood since the golden era with movies like Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers and countless Pirate films. It was the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise that brought swashbucklers into a whole new world with modern audiences.

However, 1998 would see the return of a legendary folk hero, both in the context of the story and in the world of cinema, when Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment produced the Martin Campbell film The Mask of Zorro.

The History

Zorro was created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley. And amazingly this property (that’s over a hundred years old) still has influence on a bevy of popular characters that still goes strong today.

Tobey Maguire could have starred in Empire Records but left to write a screenplay that never materialized. However, he still became an A-list movie star. The film's casting process involved prominent figures like Angelina Jolie and Billie Joe Armstrong. Empire Records initially bombed at the box office, contrasting with the success of Clueless, due to a strategic decision by Regency Enterprises.

Empire Records is a cult classic that encapsulates the mid-'90s vibe with its unique blend of comedy, drama, and music, and Tobey Maguire almost starred in the movie. Set in an independent record store fighting to keep its identity amidst corporate takeover threats, the 1995 film showcases a day in the lives of its eccentric staff. The screenplay, penned by Carol Heikkinen, draws from her own experiences working at Tower Records, capturing the era's music culture and the angst and aspirations of its youth. It's mostly celebrated for the...

Exclusive: Emmy-winning filmmaker and two-time Oscar nominee Mikael Salomon has inked with Buchwald.

Salomon directed episodes of HBO’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning series Band of Brothers from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, for which he won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special.

Having worked as a cinematographer early on in his career on such movies as Backdraft, Far and Away, Always, Arachnophobia and James Cameron’s The Abyss, he was Oscar-nominated for his Dp work on the latter and in the VFX category for Backdraft.

He had directed a bulk of episodic television including History’s Six, the NatGeo miniseries The Long Road Home, CBS’ Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, Alias and Nash Bridges.

His feature directing credits include Paramount’s Hard Rain starring Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater, Disney’s A Far Off Place starring Reese Witherspoon among others.

Salomon continues to...

Before settling down with Jim Toth, and even before having two kids with Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon was romantically entwined with another Hollywood figure – Jeremy Sisto.

The actor revealed that he and the Oscar-winning star had a teenage romance after meeting on the set of a 1992 made-for-tv movie.

"[Witherspoon] was my first actress girlfriend," Sisto, 41, said during a Reddit Ama. "We had a long-distance relationship for a long time."

The movie, a drama called Desperate Choices: To Save My Child, was filmed when Witherspoon was around 16 and Sisto was around 17 years old. In the film, Witherspoon played a teenager dying from leukemia.

Grossing just under forty million domestically and scoring two Academy Award nominations (for its actresses Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern), Wild arrives on Blu-ray on it’s cushion of critical acclaim. French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee’s follow-up to the 2013 The Dallas Buyers Club is less problematic in its examination of a notable real life personality, but follows his verve to chart descent and ascent as juxtaposition on a linear, clearly defined timeline. Though Witherspoon’s sometimes showy performance tends to feel a bit too glossy, even if just for its ability to seem like predictable awards consideration fodder, the film succeeds in surprising ways both in how it tries to address the realities of sexual addiction to mask emotional pain and as an excellent showcase for the too often underrated Dern.

Arriving at the end of star Witherspoon’s auteur binge is one of her most rewarding turns in years.

For this week’s brand new spotlight piece, I wanted to cite an A-lister who is having one really good 2014, to say the least. It’s Reese Witherspoon, an Academy Award winning actress who only this year is finally solidifying her status not just as a star, but as a supremely talented actress as well. It’s high time too, as she’s given more top quality performances than a lot of people realize. From some of her early work to the performance that won her the Oscar, Witherspoon has become a deserving member of the A-list, though someone who doesn’t always get the credit that she truly deserves. As such, it’s only appropriate today to put the spotlight on her. Here we go… Witherspoon got her start with a few head turning roles in smaller films, starting with The Man in the Moon, followed by A Far Off Place and Freeway,...

• Rosario Dawson will join Ryan Reynolds to star in the thriller Queen of the Night, about a father looking for his kidnapped daughter, who has been missing for years. Directed by Atom Egoyan, known for Chloe and The Sweet Hereafter, Dawson will play a detective in the case. The Canadian director is expected to begin shooting the film in February in Ontario. [The Wrap]

• In a video interview with Collider, Dakota Fanning slips up and tells them that she’s been cast in the late in life Errol Flynn biopic, The Last of Robin Hood, from the writing and directing team of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.

Since appearing in both Seasons One and Two of "American Horror Story," Dylan McDermott's career, especially in the horror genre, has been revitalized; and we now have the first word on what the actor will be up to next!

From the Press Release

Actor Dylan McDermott has signed on to star in Freezer, an action-thriller shooting this month in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, producers said today. Mikael Salomon is directing the film from a script by Tom Doganoglu and Shane Weisfeld.

Salomon previously collaborated with McDermott on the TV miniseries "The Grid." Lee Nelson and David Buelow are producing the movie for Envision Media.

McDermott will play Robert, an everyday guy, who finds himself "tested beyond human endurance when he awakens to find himself locked in an industrial freezer by Russian thugs," a synopsis said.

"They insist he return the $8 million he stole from them. The only problem is, Robert...

I've been bad and I'm quite behind on blogging. Supposed to be working on that "Best Shot" for this evening (La Dolce Vita) but I am a million hours behind and now the Academy has gone and finalized the Oscar Foreign Film list and the Documentary Short Finalist so there's that, too. Updating now so more on something or other in a couple of hours.

In the meantime this is a shot from Madonna's "Bad Girl" video which I've been obsessing over this week due to all The Social Network / David Fincher related posting. And I don't even like the song!  Discuss.

I promise I'm logging off of The Fincher Network now but isn't that shot heaven? Smoking kills but damn does it look good in movies/music videos. (See also: the complete works of Wong Kar Wai.) Incidentally the cinematographer on the Bad Girl video was Juan Ruiz Anchía,...

Production gets underway next week at Ireland's Ardmore Studios on the historical television drama series 'Camelot'. Worth an estimated $32million to the Irish industry, the ten part series will film in Ireland for 22 weeks. Irish director Ciaran Donnelly takes the helm for the first two episodes and will be followed by Canadian director Jeremy Podeswa - both directors worked on 'The Tudors' with Donnelly winning an Ifta for his efforts in 2009. Danish director Mikael Salomon (A Far Off Place, Hard Rain) will lead the team for episodes 5 & 6. Solomon has received two Oscar nominations for his cinematography work (Backdraft, The Abyss) and includes the Irish shot 'Far and Away' in his long list of Dop credits. Other 'Tudors' alumni include line producer Séamus McInerney, Emmy winning Irish costume designer Joan Bergin (The Prestige, Veronica Guerin), Emmy nominated Irish production designer Tom Conroy (Breakfast on Pluto, Intermission) and...

Whether or not you knew him best as Ethan Randall -- the name he acted under at the start of his career -- if you were a girl growing up in the '90s you probably sighed more than a few times over then-teenage actor Ethan Embry. Adept at playing mop-topped snooty juveniles in early '90s flicks like Dutch and A Far Off Place, once Embry hit 1995 he moved beyond the kid flicks into teen idol territory, even if he tended to play the sweet-natured sidekick while others nabbed the spotlight. Then again, it was one of Embry's most endearing, adorable roles that sealed his place in my movie crush catalogue for all time -- his turn as the happy-go-lucky, Gwar-loving, Empire Records employee Mark.

As the hyperactive and slightly off-kilter store employee with a mane of curly golden ringlets and dreams of rock 'n' roll stardom, Embry's...