Thoughts

        Helloo all! Question- if you decided to go to a red carpet with a paper bag over your head, what would you write on it?

       Questions like this keep me up at night...

       Anyways, my movie-related thoughts for this week:

1) I have been planning to start on Ben Wheatley's filmography for a while now. Looks like his latest project is going to give me the push I needed. High Rise, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard, is about a doctor who gets involved in the secret world of a high rise built during the Thatcher era in England where the tenants are divided into quarrelling classist factions. And none other than Tom Hiddleston is going to star as the doctor whose name is Robert Laing. Hiddles is doing great things with his career and this whole projects sounds very exciting. Wheatley is also going to direct the first two episodes of Doctor Who series 8 so I'm really pumped to see his work.

2) One of my most anticipated films of 2015, the Fassy-Cotillard starrer-Macbeth, has started filming. While  the Macbeths are as perfect as they come, the rest of the characters are also going to be played by some excellent actors. Paddy Considine is going to be Banquo, Sean Harris is Macduff, and Jack Raynor and Elizabeth Debicki are also in the film. I am guessing that the former will play prince Malcolm and the latter will be Lady Macduff. Eitherways, this is one amazing and rather hot cast. I am currently studying the play in college and I swear, I just keep imagining this film during the lectures. I need it. Justin Kurzel is directing it.

3) Criminally underrated Paul Bettany will star as the Vision in the upcoming The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Bettany is actually one of the original Marvel actors from phase 1, voicing Tony Stark's awesome interface Jarvis. Of course, I am fairly certain this will be addressed in the movie. In the Marvel comic-verse, Vision goes from being a baddie android to a good guy and even marries the Scarlet Witch, who will be played by Elizabeth Olsen in the movie. I guess I should be more skeptical about this film because seriously, where do you go from after The Avengers, but I'm super duper excited about all these developments. It has started filming today in Johannesburg. BIG HULK YESSSSS!!!

4) Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, easily my favourite on screen couple of 2013, are going to reteam for a drama about the bombing during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Hill will play Richard Jewell, a security guard who was first hailed as a hero for discovering the bomb and helping people to evacuate only to then be suspected as the perpetrator behind the bombing. Leo will play his attorney. After The Wolf of Wall Street, I am ready to watch these two in anything whatsoever and this actually sounds pretty fantastic.

5) Other casting stuff- Ewan McGregor, Tye Sheridan, Ciarin Hinds and Ayelet Zurer will be starring in Rodrigo Garcia's Last Days in the Desert. In it, McGregor will play a double role of a holy man and a demon who journeys through a desert. The synopsis is described as "an encounter with a family struggling to survive in this harsh environment forces the holy man to confront his own fate." McGregor is one of my most favourite actors and this sounds like an interesting plot. Emma Watson will star alongside Ethan Hawke in Alejandro Amenábar's Regression which is about "dealing with one's deepest primal fears". Amenábar directed one of my most favourite horror movies, The Others, so I will be looking forward to this. Johnny Depp and Tom Hardy will co-star in Black Mass about Whitey Bulger, one of America’s Most Wanted men and the leader of the the Winter Hill Gang, and who was also apparent;y an FBI informant. Depp will play Bulger and Hardy will play an FBI agent named John Connolly who was a childhood friend of Bulger's. One of Depp's best performances ever was in Donnie Brasco and it will be great seeing him go down the gangster road again, especially after his recent career choices.

6) If you weren't aware of it already, my fellow chick with accent from German/Danish-land, Mette has started a Youtube channel with her sister and it is awesome. Check out their second video-

7) Posters- Under the Skin's poster is a thing of beauty. I am kind of skeptical about the film because it really does not seem the kind I will like, but the poster is definitely gorgeous. The Transcendence poster is a bit creepy and not in a good way. It makes me feel gross for some reason. However, The Poster Of The Millenium, THE Poster To End All Posters is THIS ONE. It's from a Bengali movie called Obhishopto Nighty which roughly translates to 'haunted nightgown'. This poster is literally everywhere in my city. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. #onlyinIndia

8) Trailers- Not really a trailer but here's a 15 minute long "foreshadowing" of the upcoming season 4 of Game of Thrones, with bigger dragons and more Hodor (everyone say "HODOR!"). I can't wait. I have my Red Wedding t-shirt ready for the season premiere. The Two Faces of January's trailer is really thrilling and the film looks gorgeous. Pretty impressive people involved too. The second trailer of Hannibal is even more stunning than the first. Ugh! Finally, the trailer of the week is the latest one of Richard Ayoade's The Double. It looks crazy and creepy and cool and I still love Jesse Eisenberg in spite of how much picturing him as a tattooed Lex Luthor makes me anxious.

9) Finally, I adore the "Celebrities Read Mean Tweets" feature on Jimmy Kimmel. Benedict Cumberbatch's was one of the best-

His cheekbones though.

Toodles!

Thoughts

      Hi guys! Sorry for the delay but Blogger has been acting crazy for me for the past few days. This very post has taken 5 attempts. Anyways, onto cinema/television-related thoughts.

1) So on my 21st birthday, I finally got myself all the Harry Potter books and DVDs. I had been wanting to do this for a very long time but kept postponing, and this obviously was a great birthday gift as Harry Potter is such a huge part of my childhood, and me for that matter. So imagine my and I guess every Potterhead's surprise when our queen, JK Rowling, announced that she is going to write the screenplays for a new series of movies set in the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The series will be about the writing of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a companion book that Rowling had released along with the Harry Potter books. Admittedly, I was a little apprehensive when I first heard about this because I don't want anything muddying up the legacy of Harry Potter. But I have faith in Rowling, and the fact that like us, she too can't get enough of the wizarding world. Plus these movies will technically not have anything to do with Harry Potter himself. They will be set in 1920s New York, which in itself is just AHMAZING. And they will follow Newt Scamander, the writer of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and the adventures he has while writing the book. Like many people on Tumblr, the first actor whose name popped into my head for the role of Scamander was *obviously* Matt Smith. I mean, Scamander is a famous Hufflepuff and every Doctor Who fangirl knows about Smith's weird obsession with hamsters. Also the fact that he's a pretty fantastic actor. Having said that, I will be glad with almost any actor they choose because heyyy, more Brits in the Harry Potter world!! I will soon acquire the book itself and I'm officially stoked for the movies now.

2) Soon after my last weekly thoughts post, in which I had spoken of Benedict Cumberbatch leaving Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak, it was announced that Tom Hiddleston will be the actor replacing him. I'm totally fine with this. Not only is Hiddles also an amazing actor with a great voice, but this means that he and Jessica Chastain, aka the two most inspirational and loveliest actors out there, will be acting together. Big Yes! The film also stars Hiddles's Only Lovers Left Alive co-star, Mia Wasikowska, and Charlie "Fifty Shades" Hunnam.

3) One of my most favourite films of last year was Leslye Headlands's rude, smart and hilarious Bachelorette. Her next movie Sleeping With Other People will see her re-teaming with the fabulous Kirsten Dunst and joining them is Jason Sudeikis. It is about a womanizer befriending a serial cheater and even though the basic plot sounds typical, I am fairly sure that Headland's dialogues and wit will make it anything but. 

4) Anton Corbijn, who made the fantastic Control, will be next making a film on the relationship between James Dean and Life magazine photographer Dennis Stock entitled Life. It will follow Stock, a young photographer, who was assigned to shoot Dean, a young rising star at the time, and how their relationship evolved before East of Eden made Dean a perennial Hollywood star. Dane DeHaan has been cast as Dean and Robert Pattinson will play Stock. Am I the only one who thinks the casting is a bit of a mind-bender? DeHaan is quite attractive in his own way, but he's no James Dean. I can see it in terms of their acting styles but it's just a bit weird. Still, Corbjin is a very good director, and he used to be a rock photographer, so he seems perfect for the job.

5) So Lars von Trier has gone a bit nuts. More than usual, I mean. Nymphomaniac, his grand tale about a woman's sexual journey from birth to the age of 50, was already going to be a two-parter. It has now been announced that the two movies will have a combined running time of 5 hours *and* there might be a potential TV series. Like woah! They already have something like 100 hours of material. The first movie is apparently more of a comedy (though I'm not sure what a von Trier comedy is) and it gets darker in the second movie (like, duh). I don't know, man. I'm curious but 5+ hours of von Trier sounds a bit... suicidal.

6) Disney has decided to release Edgar Wright's Ant-Man in the summer of 2015. In case you don't remember, this is also the time when The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars VII, Jurassic Park 4 and the new Terminator movie will come out. Even if you ignore the last two (like I am), it just seems so stupid! Ant-Man was going to be a risk no matter when they released it. The superhero isn't well-known, he's *called* Ant-Man, Wright is more of a cult director- none of these scream big blockbuster hit. The film hasn't even been cast yet. On the other hand, the first Avengers movie is *only* the THIRD HIGHEST GROSSING MOVIE OF ALL TIME, and Star Wars nerds even managed to make the new trilogy a big financial success and undoubtedly they'll do the same this time. I, for one, am actually looking forward to Ant-Man even more than Age of Ultron, and it will be a crying shame if it fails to do well. Gahh, this sucks!

7) They finally have a name and a poster for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special- "The Day of the Doctor". There is still no sign of the trailer but gosh, I'm excited. Did you spot the "Bad Wolf" sign in the poster?!!

8) Trailers- Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse star in new comedy Neighbours. I think it looks pretty funny, and I do like the people involved. I have a new found appreciation for Efron. It might have something to do with The Paperboy... The Railway Man has a pretty great cast but it still feels kind of blah. Why does Jeremy Irvine keep coming in these depressing tales? Though the trailer of True Detective is kind of all over the place, just the talent involved (Cary Fukanaga, Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson) and the fact that visualised bleak crime dramas are all the rage right now, I am really looking forward to this television series. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom looks pretty good. Early reviews have all been been raving about Idris Elba's performance so yaay! The best trailer of the week is that of Richard Ayoade's The Double. Moody, silent, weird, two Jesse Eisenbergs (!)- love it. Can't wait for this film.

9) Finally, a huge reason why Breaking Bad is such a great show is its two main actors, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. Here's them being awesome on a Jimmy Fallon sketch, Joking Bad-

I love them both. Also, Aaron Paul looks extra hot here.

Tata for now!