In director Wanuri Kahiu’s “Look Both Ways,” a twentysomething woman is confronted with a pivotal situation that splits her life in two, eventually landing both versions of herself at a crossroads. The film mixes the conceits of “Sliding Doors” and “For Keeps” into one refurbished product, eschewing fantasy or melodrama in favor of grounded authenticity and levity. While the filmmakers’ heads and hearts are in the right place with their resonant sentiments on taking risks and embracing fate, their execution of narrative basics proves lackluster.
Natalie (Lili Reinhart) may look like an animated Disney princess, but her life is no fairytale. The soon-to-be college graduate has a five-year plan for success. Or at least she thought she did. She didn’t factor in the spontaneous sex she and friend Gabe (Danny Ramirez) had after finals, which leaves her puking her guts out and taking a pregnancy test at a rowdy graduation party.
Natalie (Lili Reinhart) may look like an animated Disney princess, but her life is no fairytale. The soon-to-be college graduate has a five-year plan for success. Or at least she thought she did. She didn’t factor in the spontaneous sex she and friend Gabe (Danny Ramirez) had after finals, which leaves her puking her guts out and taking a pregnancy test at a rowdy graduation party.
- 8/17/2022
- by Courtney Howard
- Variety Film + TV
Academy invitee Eddie Redmayne in 'The Theory of Everything.' Academy invites 322 new members: 'More diverse and inclusive list of filmmakers and artists than ever before' The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has offered membership to 322 individuals "who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures." According to the Academy's press release, "those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy's membership in 2015." In case all 322 potential new members say an enthusiastic Yes, that means an injection of new blood representing about 5 percent of the Academy's current membership. In the words of Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs (as quoted in the press release), in 2015 "our branches have recognized a more diverse and inclusive list of filmmakers and artists than ever before, and we look forward to adding their creativity, ideas and experience to our organization." In recent years, the Academy membership has...
- 7/1/2015
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
©Renzo Piano Building Workshop/©Studio Pali Fekete architects/©A.M.P.A.S.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this week that the Los Angeles City Council, in a unanimous vote, approved plans for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Construction will begin this summer, and ceremonial groundbreaking festivities will occur this fall.
“I am thrilled that Los Angeles is gaining another architectural and cultural icon,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “My office of economic development has worked directly with the museum’s development team to ensure that the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will create jobs, support tourism, and pay homage to the industry that helped define our identity as the creative capital of the world.”
“We are grateful to our incredible community of supporters who have helped make this museum a reality,” said Dawn Hudson, the Academy’s CEO. “Building this museum has been an Academy...
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this week that the Los Angeles City Council, in a unanimous vote, approved plans for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Construction will begin this summer, and ceremonial groundbreaking festivities will occur this fall.
“I am thrilled that Los Angeles is gaining another architectural and cultural icon,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “My office of economic development has worked directly with the museum’s development team to ensure that the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will create jobs, support tourism, and pay homage to the industry that helped define our identity as the creative capital of the world.”
“We are grateful to our incredible community of supporters who have helped make this museum a reality,” said Dawn Hudson, the Academy’s CEO. “Building this museum has been an Academy...
- 6/27/2015
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Strangely dropping a press release on a historic day where the nation's attention is elsewhere, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed their annual list of new member invitees this morning. For those who criticize the makeup of the Academy there was some good news and the stark realization the organization still has a long way to go. The Academy has spent the last eight to 10 years attempting to diversify its membership and this year's class mostly reflects that. There are significantly more invitees of Asian and African-American descent, but the male to female disparity is still depressing. Out of the 25 potential new members of the Actor's Branch only seven are women. And, no, there isn't really an acceptable way for the Academy to spin that sad fact. Additionally, It's important to realize the 322 people noted in the release have only been invited to join Hollywood's most exclusive club.
- 6/26/2015
- by Gregory Ellwood
- Hitfix
Writer-director Malcolm D. Lee has re-assembled the entire nine-member cast of the original 1999 movie for this sequel.
Sequels are rampant in Hollywood, but it’s rare to see a sequel produced almost 15 years after the release of the original movie. This happens when a movie has a fan base, and filmmakers and cast members are eager to revisit an earlier opus. The Best Man was a hit in 1999, partly because it appealed to a more upscale African-American audience than Hollywood ordinarily acknowledges. Now writer-director Malcolm D. Lee has re-assembled the entire nine-member cast of the original movie for The Best Man Holiday, which is set at Christmas and has a good chance to succeed and also become a holiday perennial on TV and DVD.
The original movie followed the romantic and professional travails of a group of college friends as they set out in the world and prepared for the...
Sequels are rampant in Hollywood, but it’s rare to see a sequel produced almost 15 years after the release of the original movie. This happens when a movie has a fan base, and filmmakers and cast members are eager to revisit an earlier opus. The Best Man was a hit in 1999, partly because it appealed to a more upscale African-American audience than Hollywood ordinarily acknowledges. Now writer-director Malcolm D. Lee has re-assembled the entire nine-member cast of the original movie for The Best Man Holiday, which is set at Christmas and has a good chance to succeed and also become a holiday perennial on TV and DVD.
The original movie followed the romantic and professional travails of a group of college friends as they set out in the world and prepared for the...
- 11/13/2013
- by Stephen Farber
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Director John Singleton returns to crime-ridden inner-city streets in Four Brothers, a movie that is part murder mystery and part sociological wish fulfillment. The murder part involves a victim, an angelic older woman, who never met a dead-end kid she wouldn't take into her foster home to turn his life around. The wish fulfillment comes when her four "sons" set out to solve and avenge her murder: Two whites and two blacks, who think, speak and act as blood brothers, go up against Detroit gangsters and cops, where corruption knows no racial divide. A white cop may be bad, and a black gangster might turn out to be a brother.
How willing you are to buy into this multiethnic fantasy might depend on how engrossed you are in the fast action, furious gunfights and the street-hardened characters' unorthodox investigative techniques. The movie possesses energy and a bunch of savvy actors, so it is highly watchable. Yet its increasing implausibility, tipping over into sheer nonsense finally, is likely to mean mixed boxoffice results in markets outside of urban venues.
David Elliot & Paul Lovett's screenplay portrays Detroit as rougher and woollier than Dodge City in a Republic Studios Western. Bad guys and good roam the streets with an arsenal of weaponry. When gunplay breaks out, nary a police officer is in sight.
Indeed, you might not be able to tell them apart except for a helpful expository primer offered by police Lt. Green (Terrence Howard) to his partner, Detective Fowler (Josh Charles), at the burial service of Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan). She performed her last good deed on Earth moments before two convenience store robbers murdered her.
The Mercer brothers all show up: Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), a mercurial roughneck just out of stir; Angel Singleton regular Tyrese Gibson), looking to hook up with hot-blooded Sofi (Sofia Vergara); and the youngster Jack Garrett Hedlund), who thinks he's a rock star. The fourth brother, Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin), is the only one with a wife and kids, so he has ambitious business plans.
Green, who once played hockey with the Mercers, advises them to leave police work to the police, which prompts Bobby to sneer. Bobby galvanizes his brothers to kick in doors, knock heads and do whatever it takes to find out who killed Mom. A favorite interviewing technique is to splash gas and threaten to light a match.
The Mercers soon realize their mom's murder was a contract killing. Which brings them up against underworld ruler Victor Sweet (British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor with a thoroughly convincing street manner).
If you take any of this seriously, you are not going to enjoy the movie very much. But as an absurd riff on baadasssss gangsta movies, Four Brothers has an undeniable visceral kick. Here, justice is swift. Bad guy gets popped in moments -- though you realize that with the brothers' interrogation style, a good guy or at least a not-so-bad guy might get popped, too. There's that much room for error.
Actors appear to be having a fine time, which always helps. Wahlberg is a full-bore hothead, a guy comfortable with the notion that a bad temper can be a good thing. Gibson is a commanding presence, as he has been in Baby Boy and 2 Fast 2 Furious. Benjamin, as the one domesticated Mercer, gives his character an appealing complexity. Hedlund has an underwritten part but brings an infectious boyish vigor to the role.
Howard, getting rave reviews for "Hustle & Flow," gives a steadiness to this less flamboyant role until the script makes him do something incredibly foolish. Ejiofor is as thoroughly repellent and unrepentant a villain as you could ask for.
A car chase and a daylight gunbattle are brilliantly executed, both flashbacks to an era when action meant stunts and not CGI. Similarly, the soundtrack is old school, ranging from Jefferson Airplane to Motown classics.
Cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. and designer Keith Brian Burns give wintertime Detroit an appropriately chilly, inhospitable look with a lot of grays and whites -- and the occasional splash of blood red.
FOUR BROTHERS
Paramount Pictures
A di Bonaventura Pictures production
Credits:
Director: John Singleton
Screenwriters: David Elliot & Paul Lovett
Producer: Lorenzo di Bonaventura
Executive producers: Ric Kidney, Erik Howsam
Director of photography: Peter Menzies Jr.
Production designer: Keith Brian Burns
Music: David Arnold
Costumes: Ruth Carter
Editors: Bruce Cannon, Billy Fox
Cast:
Bobby: Mark Wahlberg
Angel: Tyrese Gibson
Jeremiah: Andre Benjamin
Jack: Garrett Hedlund
Lt. Green: Terrence Howard
Detective Fowler: Josh Charles
Sofi: Sofia Vergara
Evelyn Mercer: Fionnula Flanagan
Victor Sweet: Chiwetel Ejiofor
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 109 minutes...
How willing you are to buy into this multiethnic fantasy might depend on how engrossed you are in the fast action, furious gunfights and the street-hardened characters' unorthodox investigative techniques. The movie possesses energy and a bunch of savvy actors, so it is highly watchable. Yet its increasing implausibility, tipping over into sheer nonsense finally, is likely to mean mixed boxoffice results in markets outside of urban venues.
David Elliot & Paul Lovett's screenplay portrays Detroit as rougher and woollier than Dodge City in a Republic Studios Western. Bad guys and good roam the streets with an arsenal of weaponry. When gunplay breaks out, nary a police officer is in sight.
Indeed, you might not be able to tell them apart except for a helpful expository primer offered by police Lt. Green (Terrence Howard) to his partner, Detective Fowler (Josh Charles), at the burial service of Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan). She performed her last good deed on Earth moments before two convenience store robbers murdered her.
The Mercer brothers all show up: Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), a mercurial roughneck just out of stir; Angel Singleton regular Tyrese Gibson), looking to hook up with hot-blooded Sofi (Sofia Vergara); and the youngster Jack Garrett Hedlund), who thinks he's a rock star. The fourth brother, Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin), is the only one with a wife and kids, so he has ambitious business plans.
Green, who once played hockey with the Mercers, advises them to leave police work to the police, which prompts Bobby to sneer. Bobby galvanizes his brothers to kick in doors, knock heads and do whatever it takes to find out who killed Mom. A favorite interviewing technique is to splash gas and threaten to light a match.
The Mercers soon realize their mom's murder was a contract killing. Which brings them up against underworld ruler Victor Sweet (British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor with a thoroughly convincing street manner).
If you take any of this seriously, you are not going to enjoy the movie very much. But as an absurd riff on baadasssss gangsta movies, Four Brothers has an undeniable visceral kick. Here, justice is swift. Bad guy gets popped in moments -- though you realize that with the brothers' interrogation style, a good guy or at least a not-so-bad guy might get popped, too. There's that much room for error.
Actors appear to be having a fine time, which always helps. Wahlberg is a full-bore hothead, a guy comfortable with the notion that a bad temper can be a good thing. Gibson is a commanding presence, as he has been in Baby Boy and 2 Fast 2 Furious. Benjamin, as the one domesticated Mercer, gives his character an appealing complexity. Hedlund has an underwritten part but brings an infectious boyish vigor to the role.
Howard, getting rave reviews for "Hustle & Flow," gives a steadiness to this less flamboyant role until the script makes him do something incredibly foolish. Ejiofor is as thoroughly repellent and unrepentant a villain as you could ask for.
A car chase and a daylight gunbattle are brilliantly executed, both flashbacks to an era when action meant stunts and not CGI. Similarly, the soundtrack is old school, ranging from Jefferson Airplane to Motown classics.
Cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. and designer Keith Brian Burns give wintertime Detroit an appropriately chilly, inhospitable look with a lot of grays and whites -- and the occasional splash of blood red.
FOUR BROTHERS
Paramount Pictures
A di Bonaventura Pictures production
Credits:
Director: John Singleton
Screenwriters: David Elliot & Paul Lovett
Producer: Lorenzo di Bonaventura
Executive producers: Ric Kidney, Erik Howsam
Director of photography: Peter Menzies Jr.
Production designer: Keith Brian Burns
Music: David Arnold
Costumes: Ruth Carter
Editors: Bruce Cannon, Billy Fox
Cast:
Bobby: Mark Wahlberg
Angel: Tyrese Gibson
Jeremiah: Andre Benjamin
Jack: Garrett Hedlund
Lt. Green: Terrence Howard
Detective Fowler: Josh Charles
Sofi: Sofia Vergara
Evelyn Mercer: Fionnula Flanagan
Victor Sweet: Chiwetel Ejiofor
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 109 minutes...
- 8/25/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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