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This article contains spoilers for The Matrix Resurrections.

Fandoms are funny things. For every group of people who love a particular movie or TV series and can’t wait to see more of it, there’s usually a large sub-section who just want it to be left alone. But in the entertainment industry, expanding or revisiting successful IP has become a relentless, cash-hunting task for all the major studios so, more often than not, it’s the part of the fandom who are nostalgic for further adventures starring their favorite characters who will end up being sated.

Nostalgia isn’t the only factor where there’s a constant need for the big franchises to keep the blockbuster excitement train running. Why should the Marvel Cinematic Universe culminate with Avengers: Endgame? No, we move on to Phase 4. Lucasfilm landed a largely appreciated Star Wars TV success with The Mandalorian? Here are...

Ever since it debuted in theaters in on HBO Max December 22, “The Matrix Resurrections” has been garnering praise from critics and fans alike for its meta take on the “Matrix” trilogy. But in a new interview with Collider, producer (and first assistant director on the first three films) James McTeigue reveals that one scene in particular was even more meta than audiences knew. Light spoilers below!

In “The Matrix Resurrections,” Neo (Keanu Reeves) believes himself to be a video game designer responsible for a popular trilogy series called Matrix. Then he hears this very inside baseball statement from his boss, Jonathan Groff’s Smith: “Things have changed, the market’s tough. I’m sure you can understand why our beloved parent company Warner Bros. has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy. They informed me they’re going to do it with or without us.”

And apparently, there’s...

For "The Matrix Resurrections," director Lana Wachowski shares scripting duties with Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell, the latter of whom authored the novel, "Cloud Atlas," which Wachowski also helped adapt into a film back in 2012. Wachowski began developing ideas for the fourth "Matrix" movie with the two writers in late 2018 after both of her parents died earlier that year.

In a forthcoming interview with /Film's Jack Giroux, Mitchell said there were two "foundational ideas" for "The Matrix Resurrections" that Wachowski initially presented him with. The first of those relates to the whole meta aspect of the movie whereby the original "Matrix" trilogy exists as a series of...

The post The Matrix Resurrections Writers Explain the Two Ideas That Kicked Off the Movie appeared first on /Film.

Even after the trippy and action-packed trailer dropped our first look at this new era of The Matrix, the fourth installment in the cyberpunk film franchise remains an unsolvable puzzle box. We certainly tried to decode the trailer for answers in our breakdown and analysis, but there’s so much that remains a mystery. How are Neo and Trinity back from the dead? Is this supposed to be a new version of the Matrix? Was Zion just another simulation all along? Why is there a new, younger Morpheus?

While director and co-writer Lana Wachowski isn’t giving away any of the answers, she did join fellow Matrix Resurrections writers Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell at a panel at the Berlin International Literature Festival to share what it’s been like returning to this beloved universe after so many years. And one of the best insights from Wachowski gives us a...

For those looking for proof of what fandom can achieve, behold: The script for the “‘Sense8 Special,” which will wrap up the fan favorite Netflix drama following its abrupt cancelation this spring, physically exists!

While initially canceled following the release of Season 2, fan outcry led Netflix to reverse that decision and produce a two-hour finale, and as seen in the Instagram photo above from star Miguel Angel Silvestre (who plays no-longer-closeted movie star Lito on the show), watermarked scripts have been distributed to the actors.

Beyond proof-of-life, the cover page reveals a number of important details about the upcoming production. For one thing, Lana J. Wachowski (the first time she’s used the letter J with her name?) is credited with writing the script alongside David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon. Both men are novelists, with Mitchell having a pre-established connection to the Wachowski tribe: He wrote the original novel “Cloud Atlas,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Adaptation (Spike Jonze)

It’s almost depressing to rewatch Adaptation in 2016, because it’s a reminder of how strong an actor Nicolas Cage is when he actually invests himself in good projects. It was soon after this that his career went off the rails, but he’s remarkably impressive here, playing the dual roles of Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother, Donald. As much a mind-fuck as any other Kaufman screenplay,...

Dozens of movies are hitting Netflix during the dog days of summer (click here for a complete list), but the sheer variety of new titles can be daunting. Movies are long, time is short, and indecision is brutal, so — in the hopes of helping you out — here are the seven best films that are coming to Netflix in August.

7. “Practical Magic” (1998)

Okay, so “Practical Magic” isn’t a “good movie” in the traditional sense…or in any other sense, for that matter. But it’s a perfect Netflix movie, which is another beast entirely. An incredible time capsule — and bottomless gif resource — from an ancient epoch that historians refer to as “1998,” this essential relic tells the story of sisters Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman) Owens, twin witches who are effectively cursed to remain single forever.

Did I mention that it was directed by Griffin Dunne? Did I mention that it was nominated for a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for including a Faith Hill song on the soundtrack? Did I mention that it features a scene in which Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing use their secret powers to blend alcoholic drinks in order to lubricate a singalong set to Harry Nilsson’s “Put the Lime in the Coconut”? “Practical Magic” was kind of a blip when it first opened, but it would shake our culture to its skeleton if it came out today. A remake feels inevitable, but in the meantime, the original makes for perfect streaming on a lazy August afternoon. Better yet, add it to your queue and swing back once Halloween rolls around.

Begins streaming August 1st.

6. “The Bomb” (2016)

“the bomb” was one of the most exciting, unclassifiable experiences on the festival circuit last year, but the sheer magnitude of the project made it unclear where it might live once it had finished traveling the world, or if it would be possible for the public to see it. Fortunately, the answers to those questions turned out to be “everywhere” and “very.” Here’s IndieWire’s Steve Greene on the 59-minute film into which this enormous piece of experimental art has been newly reshaped:

Read More‘the bomb’ Review: New Doc on Netflix Is a Surreal Music Video About the End of the World

Directed by Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari, and Eric Schlosser, this experimental, sensory history of the nuclear bomb is a staggering look at the world’s most destructive weapon and the lessons of almost eight decades that some still choose to ignore. Threading together modern-day news footage, Cold War era safety videos and grainy archival peeks into the construction process, “the bomb” looks at nuclear weapons in their myriad historic forms. Foregoing the usual talking head interviews or explanatory narration, the one piece of connective tissue throughout the film, besides the subject itself, is the film’s score, from Los Angeles electronic minimalist outfit The Acid. Throughout a harrowing parade of images and fleeting moments of whimsy, the droning, pulsating music underneath brings an alternating sense of dread and power.

Begins streaming August 1st.

5. “Cloud Atlas” (2012)

It’s easy to make fun of “Cloud Atlas,” and not just because one of the six characters that Tom Hanks plays is pretty much a live-action Jar Jar Binks. Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis’ cosmically ambitious sci-fi epic is — in its own delirious way — one of the most earnest movies ever made. Adapted from David Mitchell’s novel of the same name, and now something of an obvious precursor to the Wachowskis’ Netflix series “Sense 8,” this symphonic story of spiritual connection spans from 1849 to 2321 in a go-for-broke attempt to crystallize the effects that one life can have on countless others.

Controversially casting individual actors in multiple roles (with many of the film’s most famous stars disguising themselves as different races and genders), “Cloud Atlas” fearlessly envisions our world as a place where bodies are temporary, but love is eternal. It’s a lot to swallow, but our collective cynicism only makes the movie more valuable, and more important to have on hand.

Begins streaming August 1st.

4. “Donald Cried” (2016)

Kris Avedisian flew under the radar when “Donald Cried” made the rounds last year — his self-directed turn as the most deeply committed man-child since “Clifford” may have been just a bit too raw and cringe-inducing for any major traction — but it’s only a matter of time before people discover one of the most fearless performances in recent memory. Here’s IndieWire’s Eric Kohn on a future dark comedy classic:

The obnoxious man-child is a common trope in American comedies, but few recent examples can match the hilariously unsettling presence of Donald Treebeck, the obnoxious central figure played by writer-director Kris Avedisian in his effective black comedy “Donald Cried.” While the story technically unfolds from the perspective of his old teen pal Peter (Jesse Wakeman), who returns to their Rhode Island suburbs from his Wall Street career after his grandmother dies, Donald welcomes his reluctant friend back to their world and won’t leave him alone. Avedisian gives Danny McBride a run for his money in this pitch-perfect embodiment of a wannabe charmer all too eager to remain the center of attention. Hardly reinventing the wheel, “Donald Cried” nevertheless spins it faster than usual, taking cues from its memorably irritating protagonist. Beneath its entertainment value, the movie also hints at the tragedy of aimless adulthood.

Begins streaming August 15th.

3. “The Matrix” (1999)

At this point, “The Matrix” has effectively become immune to any sort of qualitative criticism; there’s no use arguing that it’s “good” or “bad” or somewhere in between, it simply is. Less a movie than a cornerstone of contemporary pop culture (for better or worse), the Wachowskis’ absurdly influential orgy of mind-blowing action and high school philosophy arrived at the tail end of the 20th century in order to help define the 21st. Its aesthetic impact on the current breed of blockbusters is self-evident, but its more profound contributions have been largely off-screen, as the film brought futurism to the masses in a way that’s only possible to trace through its most unfortunate side effects (e.g. the diseased misogyny of “red pill” thinking).

Of course, “No can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” Now that it’s on Netflix, it couldn’t be easier to do just that.

Begins streaming August 1st.

2. “Jackie Brown” (1997)

Every hardcore Tarantino fan’s favorite Tarantino film, “Jackie Brown” is more than just an homage to blaxploitation or the best Elmore Leonard adaptation ever made (sorry, “Out of Sight”), it’s also something of a tribute to all of the crime writer’s work and the scuzzy but soulful ethos that bound it together. To this day, “Jackie Brown” remains a major outlier for Qt. For one thing, it’s based on pre-existing material. For another, it’s got a bonafide sex scene. Last but not least, it’s about recognizably human characters who have genuine depth, who have real lives that feel as though they continue beyond the confines of a movie screen (no disrespect to the cartoonish avatars who populate Tarantino’s later, more solipsistic work — they serve their purpose to perfection).

Pam Grier is spectacular in the title role of a flight attendant with a drug smuggling side hustle. Robert Forster is heartbreaking as lovelorn bondsman Max Cherry. Hell, even Robert De Niro is phenomenal, the iconic actor beautifully playing against his legend by inhabiting the film’s most pathetic and disposable character. For anyone put off by the blockbuster scale of Tarantino’s recent work, “Jackie Brown” is a rock-solid reminder of his genius for elevating fevered pastiche into singular pathos. And the soundtrack owns.

Begins streaming August 1st.

1. “All These Sleepless Nights” (2016)

It would be reductive and unfair to say that Michal Marczak’s “All These Sleepless Nights” is the film that Terrence Malick has been trying to make for the last 10 years, but it certainly feels that way while you’re watching it. A mesmeric, free-floating odyssey that wends its way through a hazy year in the molten lives of two Polish twentysomethings, this unclassifiable wonder obscures the divide between fiction and documentary until the distinction is ultimately irrelevant.

Read MoreReview: ‘All These Sleepless Nights’ Is the Movie That Terrence Malick Has Been Trying to Make

Unfolding like a plotless reality show that was shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, this lucid dream of a movie paints an unmoored portrait of a city in the throes of an orgastic reawakening. From the opening images of fireworks exploding over downtown Warsaw, to the stunning final glimpse of Marczak’s main subject — Krzysztof Baginski (playing himself, as everyone does), who looks and moves like a young Baryshnikov — twirling between an endless row of stopped cars during the middle of a massive traffic jam, the film is high on the spirit of liberation. More than just a hypnotically hyper-real distillation of what it means to be young, “All These Sleepless Nights” is a haunted vision of what it means to have been young.

Begins streaming August 15th.

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Never tell Hollywood it can’t do something. Over the years, the entertainment industry has gamely (and, often, unwisely) taken on projects that have been deemed unadaptable, often by their very own authors and creators. Such a film is bound for the big screen later this week, when Nikolaj Arcel’s already embattled “The Dark Tower” arrives, attempting to prove to audiences that adapting a sprawling Stephen King opus into a movie and television franchise after nearly a decade of starts and stops is, in fact, a good idea. It’s hardly the only example of such a gamble, and few similar attempts have managed to pay out, either financially or creatively.

Read More‘The Dark Tower’ Tested So Poorly That Sony Considered Replacing Director — Report

Sometimes “unadaptable” is just that, and perhaps even the best of books simply isn’t suited for a splashy filmed version. While it remains...

Netflix may have cancelled the Wachowski’s cult hit “Sense 8,” but its adding two of their defining works to its streaming library next month. All three entries in “The Matrix” trilogy are heading to Netflix, as is the ambitious “Cloud Atlas,” which means you’ll be able to bring summer to an end by bingeing mind-melting science fiction.

Read More: Netflix Is Not the Problem: Why Bad Theatrical Presentations Are Destroying the Experience

Other titles joining the streaming service include underrated gems from Quentin Tarantino and Michael Haneke, plus two of the year’s most exciting documentary films. Check out a complete list of all the new movies joining Netflix in August 2017 below, including our 7 must-binge choices.

“The Matrix” Trilogy (August 1)

August kicks off with “The Matrix,” “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” all becoming available to stream on Netflix. Say what you want about the two sequels, but...

Ryan Lambie Jul 26, 2016

They cost millions and they’re very, very odd. We take a look at 12 expensive and eccentric Hollywood films from the past 40 years...

The risk-averse nature of filmmaking means that the world’s more maverick and outrageous writers and directors have to make do with relatively low budgets. Nicolas Winding Refn drenched the screen in all kinds of sordid, violent and startling imagery in such films as Only God Forgives and this year’s The Neon Demon, but the combined budget of those probably didn’t even match the catering budget for something like Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice.

Every so often, though, a truly bonkers film slips through the Hollywood studio system - often by accident. From horror sequels to original sci-fi adventures, here are 12 incredibly expensive and gloriously eccentric Hollywood movies from the past 40 years.

The Exorcist II (1977)

Budget: $14 million

Like most films made for purely financial reasons,...

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Director Tom Tykwer tackles Dave Eggers' A Hologram For The King, with help from Tom Hanks. Here's our review...

The opening dream sequence of A Hologram For The King finds status symbols of the American dream evaporating into puffs of purple smoke as Alan Clay (Tom Hanks) paraphrases the opening of Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime - “You may find yourself looking for your large automobile... without a beautiful house, without a beautiful wife and you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”- to the fourth wall and then the heavens above.

This is representative of writer-director Tom Tykwer's slightly sunnier take on Dave Eggers' acclaimed novel, in which struggling salesman Alan travels to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to pitch a virtual reality conferencing system to the king. Unfortunately, Alan is on thin ice with his company, who...

Even while it was in production, Tom Tykwer’s A Hologram for the King fostered a dual atmosphere of intrigue and questionability. After all, it was based off a lesser and somewhat inconsequential novel by Dave Eggers, whose own evocative prose styling was the sole reason to experience it on the page. It didn’t boost confidence that most of the book’s most compelling virtues were precisely the sort of nuances that get cut in a cinematic adaptation. On that proverbial other hand, Tykwer isn’t exactly a filmmaker who travels traditional Hollywood pathways when adapting challenging works; he found the odd and distinctive hearts of both David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (which he co-directed with the Wachowskis) and Patrick Suskind’s Perfume. Perhaps then, it isn’t surprising that Hologram ends up somewhere in the middle of what we would expect; instead of trying to overcome its slight,...

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Fresh off negotiating a deal to rescue a captured ally in Steven Spielberg’s wartime drama Bridge of Spies, Tom Hank’s next role will have the Oscar-winner make tracks to Saudi Arabia, where his hapless Alan Clay will negotiate a decidedly different set of deals in A Hologram For the King.

Reteaming with his Cloud Atlas helmer Tom Tykwer – he co-directed the time-spanning adaptation alongside the Wachowski siblings – the German filmmaker’s latest adaptation also represents a change of pace from David Mitchell’s sprawling sci-fi insofar as A Hologram For the King is rooted in the harsh reality of international commerce.

Headlining the feature as Alan Clay, it is Tom Hanks who stars as the washed-up business in desperate need to close a lucrative It contract. Should pen meet paper, it’ll pave the way for a huge new complex to begin construction out in the Saudi Arabia desert.

The right book, it’s said, can change your life. Some books can alter perceptions of the world, or let a reader see life from a perspective they may never have considered before. Others expand the sense of what’s possible within the confines of a narrative; still others tell stories that the reader might not have ever expected to find themselves hearing. With a New Year just beginning, it’s an ideal time to seek out books that have a track record of changing your life. So we asked a number of writers across the board — from Eileen Myles to David Mitchell to Chuck Palahniuk to Alexander Chee to leading genre authors — about the books that changed their lives. Here’s what they had to say, in their own words.Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas and Grace Land “I was ten when I read James Baldwin’s Another Country.

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From Thomas F Wilson in Back To The Future to Nicolas Cage and John Travolta in Face/Off - when actors play multiple roles...

The dramatic use of actors playing multiple characters is a bold and rather theatrical device that has its ups and downs. It goes at least as far back as Captain Hook being played by the same actor who plays the Darling children's father in stage productions of Peter Pan, a technique largely adopted in film adaptations of the story, too (hello to Jason Isaacs).

It's used a lot in cinema too. Done well, it's impressive, but when it's bad, it's Jack & Jill. Whether used in comedy or drama or outright horror, there are countless examples of actors delivering terrific performances in more than one role at once, and that's before we even get past Cloud Atlas. Still, we've had a go at totting up 25 of the best.

As "Cloud Atlas" (2012) steams toward its conclusion, it measures the world's full weight. Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae), a slave engineered to serve the consumerist wasteland of Neo Seoul, year 2144, completes her rebellion with a public message, an argument for individual liberty as collective obligation that will, in the tale's imagined future, become a kind of scripture. "Our lives are not our own," she says. "From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future." Adapted by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer from David Mitchell's unadaptable novel, "Cloud Atlas" loses the delicate echoes of the source material in a sonic boom of Hollywood filmmaking. But while it's uglier and rougher than Mitchell's sextet of linked stories, the film is unaccountably powerful. Full of "tricksy gimmicks," as publisher Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent) warns at the outset, "Cloud.

As the Wachowskis’ Sense8 arrives on Netflix, Ryan checks out the first three episodes of this complex sci-fi drama...

Ever since they first beseiged the box-office in 1999, the Wachowskis have specialised in larger-than-life, bombastic images: Keanu Reeves ducking a bullet in beautiful slow-motion in The Matrix, the high-octane psychedelia of Speed Racer and the weird sight of a wolf-eared Channing Tatum flying through the air on jet boots in this year’s Jupiter Ascending.

Yet Sense8 begins not with a bang but with the image of Daryl Hannah writhing about on a fusty mattress. It’s the first in a collection of incongruous sequences which, like a mosaic, gradually come together to form a more intelligible image.

Sense8 is another coup for Netflix after the success of such envelope-pushing shows as Orange Is The New Black and Daredevil. It pairs the Wachowski siblings with J Michael Straczynski, the veteran of...

In space, no one can hear you scream… with laughter. Which is helpful when watching the Wachowskis’ latest effort

“Bees don’t lie…” When it comes to bonkers, overcooked, overambitious sci-fi, writer/directors Andy and Lana Wachowski really are in a world of their own. It took me three runs to get my head around their adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas but I suspect that this colourfully ridiculous (and strangely archaic) Star Wars/Matrix/Flash Gordon mish-mash has delivered all of its riches on first viewing.

The plot is sub-Hitchhiker’s Guide/Guardians of the Galaxy bunkum about extravagantly coiffured extraterrestrials who rule Earth from afar, but whose plans to “harvest” its riches are confounded by the genetic resurgence of intergalactic royalty in the unsuspecting shape of toilet-cleaning Mila Kunis (she is the one!). Channing Tatum is the wolf/man hybrid who plays Clark Kent to Kunis’s...

Kate Bush, most famous for her songs “Running Up That Hill” and “Don’t Give Up,” had her first live performance in 35 years on Tuesday to unanimously positive reviews.

#KateBush: Singer Returns After 35 Years

Bush put on a dramatic stage show at London’s Eventim Apollo venue—involving surrealist sets, monsters and paper airplanes. David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and the upcoming The Bone Clocks, who is known for his unreal concepts and imagery, helped Bush develop the visuals and themes apparently in the show.

Her 35-year absence has long been contributed to several factors. She wanted to tend to her then-young family, she was a known perfectionist who wanted everything just right, and early on in her (first and final) tour in 1979, her lighting director fell to his death.

In the United States, Bush was known for her single “Running Up That Hill” which received a resurgence in...

Richard Ayoade shot to fame as Moss in The It Crowd but it was Submarine, his debut behind the camera, that won him critical acclaim. As his new film, The Double, is released, he talks about pride, performing and giving up his pop dreams

The premise of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1846 novella The Double is simple but ingenious: a man lives an entirely unremarkable existence until one day his exact doppelganger shows up. This incongruous situation fast becomes insufferable for two reasons: first, the new guy is slick where he is stammering, popular where he's forgettable, Day-Glo to his beige; and, second, because no one else notices any likeness at all between the pair of them.

The Double, it's said, is meant as an allegory: the straight man is Dostoevsky in real life, shy and often awkward; the arriviste is the author 2.0, the person he sometimes wished he was, who is quick-witted and irresistible to women.

Overshadowed by the major Hollywood contenders and the stars involved, the short film categories at the Academy Awards rarely get the attention they deserve. It can be argued that the filmmaking process for these smaller pieces requires a particular set of skills that must abide by the time and financial restraints that apply differently that to feature films. This year’s Live Action Short nominees all come from European filmmakers, but vary in content and scope. British director Mark Gill is among this batch of outstanding creators, his short The Voorman Problem is perhaps the one with the highest profile in the category. Starring Tom Hollander and Martin Freeman the story follows Doctor Williams who is called in to evaluate a prison inmate who maintains he is God. With elements of smart dark humor the filmmaker managed to create something witty, yet disturbingly thought provoking. Gill talked to us about the inspiration, his road to the Oscar nomination, and the incredible approach to get well-known actors to appear on his short film.

This is the first interview in a series of conversations with all five nominees in the category, all of which will appear here on SydneysBuzz this week.

Carlos Aguilar: How did the concept for the film originate?

Mark Gill: The idea is an adaption of a small section of a novel by David Mitchell, who wrote Cloud Atlas, the book is called number9dream. Within that book there is a small vignette, "Panopticon", the main character has a dream where he goes to the cinema and on the screen he can see all he world’s problems.

Aguilar: Since your film is an offbeat comedy combined with various existential elements, how do you think it would have worked as a more serious piece?

Gill: My worry is that when you are tackling something as religious you can start being preachy. Then I wouldn’t see any difference between me and religion, and I think that’s why to tackle religion I used comedy to try to demystify it from my personal standpoint. I think comedy is a great vehicle. It can be subtler like this.

Aguilar: What where the biggest challenges to make this short film given the caliber of talent involved, and with such a particular story?

Gill: The biggest challenge was to coordinate the actors’ schedules. We had a long pre-production period, 6 weeks. During the production process you are always thrown these challenges, or these curveballs and you have to react to them. To me it was just great to have that caliber of cast on board, collaborating with people like that is challenging but it was also a really fantastic moment.

Aguilar: Now that you mention the great actors you had a chance to work with, how difficult was it to get them on board for a short film?

Gill: We were very confident on our script, so we decided to approach some great actors, the first one we approach was Kevin Spacey. We just wrote him a nice letter and he responded very positively saying that he would like to help, he suggested we contacted Tom Hollander directly and not use his agent, which is something you are not supposed to do but it worked for us. Then Tom and I had a conversation and Martin’s name came up and we thought he’d be great. Tom sent Martin’s agent an email with the script, and Martin’s agent said yes. Sounds quite simple, but it really was that easy.

Aguilar: Was there pressure on you as the director having to work with such experienced actors?

Gill: There is always pressure when you are making a film. Simply having these two actors on board just raised everyone’s game, including me. I was just really interested to see what they would bring to it, during the first reading I didn’t offer any direction I just let them bring that they had to bring. Then it was just collaborating, working together, and refining it.

Aguilar: You mention the inspiration for the short was a piece of a novel, but what attracted you to this subject?

Gill: I’ve always been quite interesting in religion; I’m not a religious person. Looking at any religion all the God’s are quite psychotic, I thought it was an interesting concept to play with. Why do we put so much faith in them? That general idea attracted me.

Aguilar: After so many festivals and awards, how has this culminating experience - the Academy Award nomination - been for you?

Gill: It has been good. We were quite confident with what we put together, we knew it would do well but we didn’t think it would do this well. 45 festivals, the nomination for the BAFTA last year, but now the Academy Award, it is just an amazing thing to experience. We are so lucky that the Academy continues to support shot films, that's something that deserves a lot of respect. It is a great way to launch our careers, it is the biggest award in the world, even just to be nominated is a massive thing for us.

Aguilar: What are your future plans? Is there a feature you are working on now?

Gill: We got a feature. I can’t really say too much about that, there are some legal things we need to sign off before we can make any announcement. It has been in development for a couple years, and there are a lot of people invested, the Academy nomination has accelerated their interest, so we got that. I’m also looking at a couple of books to adapt.

Odd List Ivan Radford 7 Jan 2014 - 06:37

Last year may only be a memory, but its film themes linger in the mind. Here's Ivan's pick of 2013's best soundtracks...

Just a quick scan down the list below reveals an extraordinary breadth of genres and subject matters, from imposing, expensive science fiction films to quiet, intimate stories about men at sea on boats or outlaws breaking out of prison to be with their wives. Disparate though the films are, they're all linked by at least one common motif: their music is utterly brilliant.

So with 2014 already well underway, and an entire new wave of films with great music in them beckoning, join us as we look back to the movies of last year, their finest soundtracks, and the must-listen pieces of music you can dig out on each one.

1. Gravity (Steven Price)

Must-listen track: Don't Let Go

When does sound...

Following their ambitious (if not entirely successful) adaptation of David Mitchell's unfilmable Cloud Atlas, Andy and Lana Wachowski are diving back into the bioluminescent waters of epic sci-fi. Starring Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, Jupiter Ascending (2014) appears rife with echoes of the directors' break-out hit The Matrix (1999) and its two sequels, but clearly has a very different texture. The first footage from their new blockbuster has now arrived in the form of an initial trailer, encouraging audiences to "expand their universe". The character who will be having their own universe expanded is cleaner Jupiter Jones (Kunis) who, much like a certain Mr. Anderson, is unaware of her true, untapped potential.

Andy and Lana Wachowski, while not universally beloved, are undoubtedly two of the most interesting and confident filmmakers in Hollywood. Who else could have possibly followed up the ludicrous eye candy of 2008.s Speed Racer with a highly cerebral adaptation of the once-thought unfilmable David Mitchell novel Cloud Atlas? Their next effort, the science fiction space opera Jupiter Ascending, is less of a departure for the duo, but the trailer above makes me think this might actually be the most accessible film of their high-concept careers. And that.s saying something, considering it stars an oddly-bearded Channing Tatum in eyeliner and elf ears playing an alien military man whose genetic make-up was combined with a wolf. You can always count on a Wachowski movie to feature visual splendor that works just as well when the volume is muted, and they.ve created an entire universe for Jupiter Ascending that will...

When it comes to the films of Andy and Lana Wachowski, it's virtually impossible to guess what they might come up with next. In 1999 they unleashed their groundbreaking vision for the future of science-fiction film with the smash hitThe Matrix. In 2012, they transformed David Mitchell's dense novel Cloud Atlas into an ambitious and vivid film despite the recurring refrain from naysayers that the book was "unfilmable." As follow-up to this incredible undertaking, the Wachowskis are working on Jupiter Ascending, which Lana has recently described to MSN as "a science-fiction space opera." Having recently wrapped the production that stars Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, the Wachowski siblings have moved into postproduction on Jupiter Ascending. The American filmmakers stepped away from overseeing its edit and visual effects for a night to attend an Australians in Film awards dinner. The two are notoriously press shy, but they did drop some details about...

A few weeks ago, we posted this mysterious trailer for a new project from the mind of J.J. Abrams.  Now, the second half of that teaser has been released along with some details on what exactly that project is.  It seems that Abrams mystery box not only encompasses the world of television and movies, but now books as well.  This new project, titled simply S., has been revealed as a collaboration with author Doug Dorst (Alive in Necropolis) and appears to be every bit as much a mystery as Abrams' previous works.  Blending the use of crossed paths of multiple characters in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas with the unconventional presentation of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, S. tells the story of the final novel of an enigmatic author and two readers who find each other through the margins of the book. Hit the jump for both trailers and the book's synopsis.

The average year in cinema looks, broadly, a lot like a sandwich. Stay with us on this. The year begins with awards season (or bread, if you will), continues into blockbuster season (the generous filling, which nowadays starts in April and runs through to August), and segues pretty quickly back into pre-awards season (another slice). You see?

Some highlights on the bread front included Steven Spielberg's sweeping Lincoln, Kathryn Bigelow's meticulous Zero Dark Thirty and Tom Hooper's ambitious Broadway adaptation Les Misérables. Meanwhile, the filling offered up some surprisingly rich, character-focused flavours thanks to Shane Black's Iron Man 3 and Jj Abrams's Star Trek Into Darkness.

And so, with half of the sandwich now eaten, we've assembled our ten favourite films of the year so far.

10. Iron Man 3

Why it's great: The course of the threequel never did run smooth, but Marvel have a...

Stoker; Cloud Atlas; Maniac; Oz the Great and Powerful; The Guilt Trip

With Spike Lee's Us remake of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy due in cinemas this autumn, the Korean maestro makes his own English-language feature debut with Stoker (2013, Fox, 18). Adapted from a long-admired script by Wentworth Miller (with contributions from Erin Cressida Wilson), this tale of innocence lost and power regained is a skin-prickling symbolic treat. When a mother (Nicole Kidman) and daughter (Mia Wasikowska) lose their husband and father respectively, the deceased's creepily seductive brother (Matthew Goode) arrives to fill the gap in their lives, and bring out a darkness lurking in the shadows of their relationship. Soon enough, boys are disappearing, the police are asking questions and the family is undergoing a generational shift. While the title and brooding imagery signal toward the vampirism of Dracula, Miller cites Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt as his touchstone text. Park...

Cloud Atlas co-director Tom Tykwer will reunite with star for film of Dave Eggers's novel about struggling Us businessman

Tom Hanks is to reunite with one of his Cloud Atlas directors, Tom Tykwer, for an adaptation of the Dave Eggers novel A Hologram for the King, Deadline reports.

Tykwer, the German film-maker whose contribution to Cloud Atlas was somewhat overlooked among all the hype surrounding his co-directors, siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski, will take charge.

Hanks, who played multiple linked roles in the sprawling opus based on David Mitchell's science fiction novel, will take the lead role of a struggling businessman who quits the Us for Saudi Arabia in an ambitious last-ditch attempt to keep his financial head above water and pay his daughter's college fees.

Tykwer has also adapted the screenplay from Eggers's book, which was a Us National book award finalist last year. The author is...

Tom Hanks and Tom Tykwer last collaborated on the ambitious adaptation of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas to disappointing box office results.  Here's hoping a second run will prove more fruitful.  Hanks and Tykwer are teaming up to adapt the Dave Eggers novel, A Hologram for the King.  The story centers on a failed American businessman (Hanks) who travels to an up-and-coming Saudi Arabian city for one last chance at success, which is his last hope to keep his fracturing family together.  Tykwer adapted the novel and will direct.  Hit the jump for more. Deadline reported on the news that Hanks and Tykwer would take on A Hologram for the King.  Hanks will next play the title role in Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips on October 11th, and he plays Walt Disney in John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr. Banks alongside Emma Thompson and Colin Farrell, with Disney releasing the...

The Wachowski/Twyker collaboration Cloud Atlas debuts on home theater this week. The film adaptation of David Mitchell‘s epic novel interweaves six stories spanning multiple generations, continents, and characters who shapeshift through ethnicity, time, and space. The Wachowskis and Twyker took a risk with Cloud Atlas by releasing themselves from the bounds of linear storytelling, and [...]

Continue reading: DVD / Blu-ray News: Cloud Atlas, Star Trek Redemption, Django, Dexter...

  Cloud Atlas  The Wachowski sibs' incredibly ambitious race-time-gender-space-crossing sci-fi drama based on David Mitchell's massive novel features an all-star cast  in six tales that weave and wander from the 19th century to a distant post-apocalyptic future. Along the way you meet Tom Hanks as, among other things, a Hawaiian tribesman; Hugh Grant as a cannibal warrior; Halle Berry as a whistle-blowing journalist; Jim Broadbent as an aging composer and Hugo Weaving as a villain in all six stories. Though three hours may be a tad long, it's pretty much always entertaining, with eye-popping action sequences, beautiful visuals and a romantic through-line that drives home the movie's theme "everything is connected." Most giggle-worthy: the parade...

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David Mitchell’s book Cloud Atlas was long considered one of those infamous “unfilmable” books. However, that didn’t stop the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer from giving it a go when they made the epic sci-fi/historical/mystery drama. Tying together six different stories in six different genres, the film was seen as a triumph by some and a mess by others. Running close to three hours, and starring a cast of actors in multiple (and sometimes marginally offensive) roles, Cloud Atlas can be a bit of a challenge to get through, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be given a chance. You might need some liquid courage to make it to the end, that is the true-true, and that is fine. Just don’t be surprised if you start seeing double (or triple or quadruple). That’s just interesting casting and lots of prosthetics. And now, to cover our butts… This...

Talk about ambitious. The Wachowskis (that would be Lana and Andy) and Tom Tykwer have combined their immense talents to tackle David Mitchell’s “unfilmable” book “Cloud Atlas” and made it, well, filmable. Many years in the making, the sprawling epic is definitely one of those movies where a Blu-ray player (or DVD player for those of you still clinging to such things) is preferable over a theatrical viewing, because let’s face it, you’re going to have to see this movie at least twice, if just to catch all the actors in all their different roles. Try that while the film is still in theaters and you might end up having to hawk an arm just to pay for the privilege. (In case you haven’t noticed, going to the movies is insanely expensive these days.) In fact, while watching the Blu-ray, I realized it was much easier...

Disney's Wreck-It Ralph maintains its momentum at the UK box office as half-term gave a lift to children's films

The winner

It lost the best animated feature Oscar to Disney stablemate Brave, but Wreck-It Ralph scored a victory at the UK weekend box-office. Takings for the film were almost the same as the previous weekend (£3.42m v £3.44m), as families slotted in a cinema visit before the end of school half-term. Over the 10 days of the school holiday (15-24 February), the video-game-themed adventure grossed an impressive £11.54m, for a total so far of £18.62m. Audiences will decrease now children are back at school, but Wreck-It Ralph should bump along for a few more weeks and is well placed to overtake the totals for 2012's Madagascar 3 (£22.74m) and Brave (£22.17m).

Wreck-It Ralph returns to the top spot after a weekend when preview takings had boosted the opening of A Good Day to Die Hard,...

So David Mitchell's novel was filmable after all – but will you want to see it twice?

Dai Congrong's bestselling Chinese translation of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake and the film version of David Mitchell's 2004 Booker shortlisted novel, Cloud Atlas, both complex fictions about the cyclical nature of life, should warn us against calling anything unfilmable or untranslatable. They are not necessarily proof, however, that they're worth filming or translating.

In a charming introduction to the new paperback edition of his novel, Mitchell expresses his good fortune that it fell into such "capable hands" as Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, the film's co-directors and adaptors. The Wachowskis love intricate narratives and the world of ideas; their Matrix trilogy has, I believe, been used in introductory philosophy courses at American colleges. Tykwer's Run Lola Run, a German action movie telling the same story thrice, with events taking different courses,...

Released last year in America, Irish audiences are now getting the chance to see the movie that has polarised critics, landing on both the best and worst lists of 2012. Based on David Mitchell's epic novel, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, and Run Lola Run director Tom Twyker's Cloud Atlas is unlike any movie you have seen before. It is a movie that defies genre, at any one point it's a thriller, love story, drama, comedy, or sci-fi actioner. It is absolutely huge, telling six thematically linked stories stretching from the 1800's to an unspecified apocalyptic future, touching on everything from reincarnation, slavery, to the power of an idea, and how these filter down through time, touching a disparate group of characters. It is hard to imagine this in hands of anybody else, as The Wachowski's and Twyker (tackling three segments each) bring this to life so perfectly. Handling one story...

Adapted from David Mitchell's 2004 novel, Cloud Atlas cross-cuts between six stories. The Wachowskis, creators of the Matrix trilogy, directed three of them: the one about the Conradesque awakening of a young American lawyer (Jim Sturgess) on a 19th- century slave ship; the one that looks like Blade Runner, about a "fabricant" who rebels against the tyrannical corporatocracy of 22nd-century "New Seoul"; and the one in which Tom Hanks and Halle Berry speak the garbled, Nadsat-like language of the post-civilisation tribes of 24th-century Hawaii.

Review Ryan Lambie 22 Feb 2013 - 17:31

The sprawling, ambitious Cloud Atlas arrives in the UK. Here's our review of a flawed yet mesmerising film...

Why would anyone think that a book as lengthy and as complex as Cloud Atlas could be adapted into a workable movie? David Mitchell’s dense, epoch-spanning novel is perhaps an example of the what can be achieved in prose but not necessarily on a big screen: multiple characters, disparate time lines, and philosophical themes about death and the Dirk Gently-like interconnectedness of all things.

Attempting to summarise Cloud Atlas in a paragraph is nigh on impossible, with the opening half hour skipping along with the dizzying momentum of a haunted television - the channel keeps changing, and you can only guess what you'll end up seeing next.

The story begins in the far-flung future, with a campfire tale recounted by Tom Hanks, scowling beneath...

The journey from page to screen is an often arduous one. The ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ nature of the adaptation means that the makers walk a creative tightrope in trying to appease fans of the novel whilst catering for cinema viewers, many of whom are outsiders to that established world.

Even when a near perfect symbiosis is realised, there will invariably be some criticism levelled at the scriptwriters, be it subplots which are discarded, or character detail jettisoned to fit the narrative into a manageable running time. With that in mind, the makers of Cloud Atlas (siblings Lana and Andy Wachowski, plus Run Lola Run’s Tom Tykwer) chose a particularity challenging text to weave into a flesh and blood interpretation. Before any film version was mooted, the novel (a Richard & Judy Book of the Year award winner amongst its many illustrious accolades) was regarded...

The cosmos gets mixed up with the costume department in this folly of an adaptation from no less than three directors

Follies don't come more intricate and extravagant than Cloud Atlas, adapted by a trio of directors from the David Mitchell novel and bouncing through the eras with a wide-eyed eagerness that borders on the ridiculous. Here is a film that travels from the 19th century to the distant future, from thriller to sci-fi to romance to farce. It comes to tell us that we are all connected, all part of the same karmic continuum. Yet never once, in the course of nearly three hours, does it amount to anything more than the sum of its parts.

The parts, too, can be infernally jarring. Cloud Atlas's big idea is to install its cast as a kind of repertory company, with each player required todouble up on a variety of roles.

Cloud Atlas hits Irish and UK cinemas tomorrow (Feb 22nd) and thanks to Warner Bros. we’ve got a pretty indepth featurette for you to check out. Lot’s of behind the scenes footage, interviews with the cast, the author of the book David Mitchell and of course The Wachowskis themselves! Synopsis: An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution. Released: Feb 22nd Ireland & UK...

The film's release should have been a global event, but its studio's reticence over its fragmented form has led to disappointing box office returns

"They played footsie for a little bit, until we basically got on our knees, begged them and crapped our pants in front of them, you know: 'Look into your heart!'"

That's Andy Wachowski's account – given to Deadline Hollywood – of trying to get Warner Brothers on side for his and sister Lana's adaptation of Cloud Atlas. Not what you think you'd have to do for a studio for whom you've made in excess of a billion and a half dollars. Warner eventually signed on, coughing up around $20m of the $102m budget – but their indecision has echoed through the film's marketing and release stages, hobbling one of the most ambitious and globally oriented projects of the decade on the first leg of its journey. Its...

The sibling directorial pairing of Lana and Andy Wachowski teamed up with Tom Tykwer to create the powerful and inspiring epic Cloud Atlas, based on the best-selling novel by David Mitchell. To celebrate the film’s release on 22 February we are going to take a look at the Wachowski’s best work to date, including The Matrix and V for Vendetta. The Matrix In 1999 the Wachowski’s brought us the ground-breaking and genre-defining Sci-fi film, The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving. The film blew audiences away with its ground-breaking introduction of a visual effect now known as ‘bullet time’, which allows a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed. The Wachowski’s both wrote and directed this visual masterpiece which grossed over $450 million at the worldwide box-office. The film spawned two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions,...

★★★☆☆ The Wachowskis have kept things relatively quiet over the last few years, with Speed Racer (2008) their only directorial outing since The Matrix Revolutions (2003). This hiatus has been spent developing Cloud Atlas (2012); since 2008, they've muscled their way through funding landmines and huge casting calls and the result is one of the most expensive independent films of all time. Cloud Atlas' production journey mirrors the extent of their vision, as they team up with Tom Tykwer to adapt David Mitchell's mammoth sci-fi fantasy novel. The hardest task for a critic will undoubtedly be to analyse Cloud Atlas without using up every sentence on plotting.

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Cloud Atlas

Stars: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, James D’Arcy, Doona Bae | Written and Directed by Andy & Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer

The technology that exists in filmmaking today makes the term an ‘unfilmable novel’ practically redundant, however some do provide a greater challenge than others. David Mitchell’s genre crossing, multi-narrative book, covering past eras and times to come is nothing short of an epic, and a big screen adaptation couldn’t be either. The Wachowskis, most famous for making The Matrix Trilogy, team up with Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The International) to make this incredibly ambitious piece of cinema.

Tykwer was meant to direct Cloud Atlas alone, but at some point during development, and working with the Wachowskis on the screenplay, they decided to co-direct, and whatever the reason, it seems to have only benefitted the film.

Director: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski; Screenwriters: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski; Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon; Running time: 172 mins; Certificate: 15

Wordsworth likened clouds to lonely, wandering souls, but according to writer David Mitchell and the brave filmmakers who have adapted his novel, all souls are connected. Tom Hanks and Halle Berry lead the ensemble, playing a multitude of characters making choices that shape the world between 1849 and 2346. This is a fascinating, far-out story, though it slightly exceeds the storytellers' grasp.

Taken individually, there is nothing especially difficult to fathom about each storyline and those set in recent times resonate in a more obvious way. In the 1970s, Berry is a reporter determined to expose corruption at a nuclear facility, which follows a brief encounter with James D'Arcy, who also features in an earlier...

Side By Side | A Good Day To Die Hard | Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God | Beautiful Creatures | This Is 40 | For Ellen | Run For Your Wife | Reign Of Assassins | Sammy's Great Escape | Andrea Bocelli: Love In Portofino | Madame De… | Murder 3

Side By Side (15)

(Christopher Kenneally, 2012, Us) 99 mins

Celluloid versus digital film-making – hardly a blockbuster proposition, but this surprisingly fascinating documentary makes you think twice about how movies are made, and seen. It also gives you a rare audience with the top technicians and film-makers out there (Scorsese, Cameron, Lucas, Nolan, Von Trier, Lynch, etc), while host Keanu Reeves keeps things informal and accessible.

A Good Day To Die Hard (12A)

(John Moore, 2013, Us) Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney. 98 mins.

Old dog Willis does no new tricks in this tiresomely cacophonous action movie, which brings in new pup Courtney for a father-son ass-kicking.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God...

Susan Sarandon and Hugo Weaving are two of the big names in what they said was the 'unfilmable' big screen adaptation of David Mitchell's epic bestseller - 'Cloud Atlas', in cinemas in the UK from next week.

In our exclusive clip above, these two stars discuss what makes the film so ground-breaking, and what their favourite transformations are in this magically real tale.

Susan Sarandon and Hugo Weaving team up to discuss their roles in 'Cloud Atlas'

To mark the latest cinema achievement by the celebrated Wachowskis (Andy and Lana) together with Tom Tykwer, HuffPost UK has an Exclusive Featurette chatting with these two about the film, which also stars Tom Hans, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw and even Hugh Grant (not often he can be tempted to a film set these days!) - all playing multiple parts, just to help confuse...

Cloud Atlas is set to his UK cinema screens 22nd February which is fast approaching. The movie is based on the hugely popular book by David Mitchell and has been adapted for the screen by Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski & Tom Tykwer, all of whom also direct.

The movie versions stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, James D’Arcy and Jim Sturgess and is very high on my must see list! Kenji got to see the movie at the Toronto Film Festival late last year and raved about it in his review which is ready for your viewing pleasure here. The interview below is with Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski & Tom Tykwer who talk about where the idea to turn the novel into a movie came from, what it was that they loved about it so much and some of their favourite moments from shooting the movie.