But here’s the thing– the man is 81 years old. So, in his, what, 40 years of directing (his directorial debut was in 1971) he’s had a total of 3 flops, if that. Well, big whoop. After all, Martin Scorsese made Shutter Island, Steven Spielberg made Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Gus Van Sant remade Psycho. All I’m saying is you would have a very difficult time naming a successful director who didn’t have couple mistakes on his list. All that has to be judged is the following criteria: does the director in question’s good work make up for his bad work? And in Eastwood’s case it is definitely yes. Oh, don’t believe me? Um, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, True Crime, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby, anyone? And those are only a few! That’s more than just a small “yes”. That is one resounding “yes.”

And so, when Eastwood tells me (via the internets, of course) that he is directing a biopic about the one and only J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, Armie Hammer, Judi Dench, Dermot Mulroney, and Ed Westwick, well I do more than merely listen up; I may even get excited. And judging by the release of the film’s first trailer, my excitement was well-granted.

The two and a half minute trailer does a good job in setting up the film yet, thankfully, does not reveal too much. More than anything, it proves that DiCaprio (true to form, I guess) can believably be the person he is imitating, J. Edgar Hoover, and in a completely stylized film no less (many thanks, Eastwood!).

J. Edgar is scheduled for a November 9th release date. Watch the trailer below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In case you were wondering, Leo and Scorsese have worked together in the past on ‘Gangs of New York,’ ‘The Aviator,’ ‘Shutter Island,’ and ‘The Departed,’ the latter winning Best Picture at the Oscars as well as earning Martin Scorsese a much deserved Best Directing award for the film, even if it wasn’t his best picture ever, ahem, ‘Goodfellas.’ So based on their past track record we can all assume this ones going to be a treat!

‘The Gambler’ is a remake of the 1974 film starring James Caan as an English professor (who Leo will presumably be playing) with a gambling addiction. The professor falls into a debt of $40,000 with the mob and it follows the man’s downward spiral of bad luck. Although I am not thrilled it is a remake, we must all remember that ‘The Departed’ was a remake as well and that turned out golden so let’s have some faith!

The project is being developed by Paramount Pictures and also has William Monahan attached to write (he also worked with Scorsese on ‘The Departed’).

Stay tuned for more news on this exciting new project Banters!

Most of the major departments on a film set have their own guild; each guild has its own award ceremony! From Cinematography to Editing to Sound to Producing, these professionals come together and look at the best films their own members did.  And while each of these is coveted, it is not nearly as catty and sneaky.  Instead, these awards usually truly reflect the best work in their field.

The Art Director is in charge of what you see on the screen.  From the shades on the windows to the food on the table, whatever you see has been carefully selected and placed there by the film’s art director.  However, the Art Director’s Guild also encompasses Production Designers, Graphic Artists, Illustrators, Matte Artists, Model Makers, Scenic Artists, Set Designers and Title Artists.  The Guild divides its nominees into three categories, with five nominees in each.  Period Film, Fantasy Film (both categories added in 2000 as one and then split into two in 2006) and Contemporary Film.  Some of these are blockbusters but others are films that did poorly at the box office.  It does not matter if Hollywood loved them or hated them.  These nominees are not chosen based on any of that. The ADG Excellence in Production Design Awards are presented to recognize superb work in the fields of art direct and production design.

Period Film
Get Low, The King’s Speech, Robin Hood, Shutter Island and True Grit.

Fantasy Film
Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, Inception, Tron: Legacy, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Contemporary Film
127 Hours, Black Swan, The Fighter, The Social Network and The Town.

The awards ceremony will take place on February 5th.

Debuting in wide release this weekend were two movies: Cop Out and The Crazies. While I predicted Crazies would top Kevin Smith’s latest the box office results proved me wrong. Both films on Friday made $5.9 million, however by Sunday Cop Out took second place with $18.6 million. Though Smith only served as director of the project, the flick had the highest opening weekend ever for any one of his films. This could be due to the unexpected controversy over Smith being described as “too fat to fly” on a Southwest Airline plane, and then later booted off, or it could be due to Cop Out’s being the most commercial Smith movie. About two police officers en route to find a missing baseball card, the comedy surpassed Smith’s previous work Zack and Miri Make a Porno’s first admission of $10.1 million in October 2008. Critics didn’t help the movie’s total too much, however. Cop Out finished on Friday with a rotten rating of 20% on site Rotten Tomatoes.

Breck Eisner’s remake of George A. Romero’s horror The Crazies was also introduced this weekend. The revival, about a government’s accidental spreading of a lethal war contaminant, managed $16.5 million at #3. This opening gross didn’t beat director Eisner’s last effort Sahara, probably due to the fact that the former had a rating of PG-13 with recognizable stars while Crazies held a restricted tag and starred no one as big as Matthew McConaughey. Although this flick earned itself a fresh 71% on Rotten Tomatoes; Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips even went as far as to calling it “better than the original”. Crazies was unable to overcome last February’s horror reboot Friday the 13^th’s opening haul of $40.6 million. But to be fair nobody called that one making as much as it did.

James Cameron’s massive success Avatar dropped only 13.8% to fourth place with $14 million, still in the top five after 11 weeks in release. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief brings us out at #5 this weekend with $9.8 million. The kiddie flick’s total is up to $71.2 million in three weeks.

Out of the top five-

• Jacques Audiard’s French gangster fiasco A Prophet (Un prophète), nominated for best foreign film at next week’s Oscars, started off on nine screens and grossed $170,000, a per screen average of $18,900.
• Adam Kane’s thriller Formosa Betrayed starring James Van Der Beek debuted with $69,000 playing on 15 screens.
• Writer-director Peter Stebbings dramedy Defendor, starring Woody Harrelson as a regular guy who thinks he has super powers, opened with $21,000 on four screens after playing on one less last weekend.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. Shutter Island…$22.2 million
2. 2. Cop Out…$18.6 million
3. 3. The Crazies…$16.5 million
4. 4. Avatar…$14 million
5. 5. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief…$9.8 million
6. 6. Valentine’s Day…$9.5 million
7. 7. Dear John…$5 million
8. 8. The Wolfman…$4.1 million
9. 9. Tooth Fairy…$3.5 million
10. 10. Crazy Heart…$2.5 million

Shutter Island is a spectacle and a mysterious film by the works of Martin Scorsese.  This is a unique movie choice for the living legend but you can’t argue with a director trying to take a new creative project.  His leading actor Leonardo DiCaprio joins him for their 4th movie together and the movie will leaves people debating and talking about it for some time.

Teddy (DiCaprio) and partner Chuck (Ruffalo) are US Marshals sent to Shutter Island to investigate the whereabouts of one of the facilities mental patients who is a murderer.  As the investigation begins, the two encounter creepy and mysterious things about the island and it’s staff that leads to a wild ride thriller from there on out.  This movie leaves a lot to be talked about and will stop here from continuing to talk about the plot and what happens do to the spoiler.  It’s a complicated movie that has some pros and cons, and I’m still debating whether I thought this was an excellent movie or not.  The acting was great, but with Leo, Ben Kingsley, and Ruffalo, you expect nothing else and for the performances a lone I would see them.  Kingsley does a great job at playing the smart and sophisticated doctor who runs the show although has enough creepiness in his demeanor that you don’t quite trust him.  Leonardo is my favorite actor and may be considered the best actor of over the past decade.  The cinematography was gorgeous and Scorsese does a great job of bringing this island alive.

The movie runs about 25 minutes too long and gets complicated in certain areas.  It’s a little too tricky for its own good at times, and some sequences were not pieced together the best way and left me and other viewers confused about what the point of it was.

All in all this is a different type of movie that should be watched, and definitely needs to be watched a second time in order to find the subtle clues that may have been missed the first time, although I don’t know if it is a movie worthy of seeing a second time.  Scorsese did a nice attempt at this thriller, but I think there are too many things preventing it from being a classic.

Here is my snap video of Shutter Island.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shutter Island

Falling 69.5% to second place with $17.2 million was Valentine’s Day, Garry Marshall’s star-studded film surrounding interlacing love stories on the title holiday. Pic’s total is up to $87.4 million on a $52 million budget. Dropping 31.8% to third was James Cameron’s nine-time Oscar-nominated Avatar with $16.1 million. The sci-fi’s domestic total is nearing $700 million.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief stooped 51% from its opening last weekend, bringing in another $15.3 million for a stateside total of $58.8 million in ten days. The book-to-movie adaptation surely benefitted from many school districts having the week off, kids flocking to the movie theater. Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman finishes the top five with $9.8 million, falling 68.7% from last tally. Its grand sum is $50.3 million, far far away from its budget of $150 million. That must hurt, Universal. 2010 isn’t starting off too well for you, is it?

Out of the top five-

• The only other notable release this weekend was Roman Polanski’s controversial The Ghost Writer, about a ghostwriter for a bygone U.K. prime minister who discovers that his client is guilty of war crimes. Polanski, currently under house arrest for allegedly having relations with a minor in 1977, won best director for Writer, starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan, at the Berlin Film Festival over the weekend. The Silver Bear-winning drama opened with $179,000 on only two screens in New York and two in Los Angeles.
• Writer-director Julio DePietro’s poorly received romantic-comedy The Good Guy, starring Alexis Bledel, debuted on nine screens and opened with $36,200.
• Opening at last year’s Berlinale and playing at numerous festivals since then, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s drama Happy Tears, following two sisters who come back home to nurse their sick father back to health, finally opened wide around the U.S. this weekend, managing $14,000 on 15 screens.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. Shutter Island…$40.2 million
2. 2. Valentine’s Day…$17.2 million
3. 3. Avatar…$16.1 million
4. 4. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief…$15.3 million
5. 5. The Wolfman…$9.8 million
6. 6. Dear John…$7.3 million
7. 7. Tooth Fairy…$4.5 million
8. 8. Crazy Heart…$3 million
9. 9. From Paris with Love…$2.5 million
10. 10. Edge of Darkness…$2.2 million

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It has been confirmed to TheMovieBanter.com that Shutter Island has been pushed to February 2010.  An interesting move if you ask me.  I have one theory why this happened.  This movie is going to suck.

Now if you watch the trailer, the movie looks like a pretty standard suspenseful horror movie where the employees of a bizarre institutional facility are secretly cahooting together to hurt patients.  Basically, something you’d expect to see fellow Wash U grad Peter Sarsgaard in.

I remember sitting in theaters a couple weeks ago, for The Hurt Locker

, and the trailer for Shutter Island popped up. My buddy leaned over next to me and said, that looks awesome. I looked at him and said, that movie looks awful – he subsequently gave me an “are you insane” glance.  That person knows who they are.  Anyways, the basis for him saying “that looks awesome” was entirely on the fact that Martin Scorsese is directing it and Leo is starring in it.  Well, both of those guys probably now regret making the film.

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By being pushed to February 2010, Shutter Island complete misses the Oscar season. Was that strategically done?  Hmmmm, probably.  Most February premiering movies are sort of lost as well.  At that time, people are pretty much only seeing Oscar buzz’d movies. Shutter Island will probably just get lost in the Oscar fog.

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Flight from Ashiya movie Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back trailer Leo should not have done this movie and Scorsese should not have made it.

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Will this impact any of their careers? No, they are both legends. But it will be interesting to see if this movie does in fact suck

What do you think?

Check out the trailer below

Click here to view the embedded video.