Motor City has been on my radar for quite some time for one big reason: it’s a revenge thriller that reportedly only has one line of dialogue in the entire film. But that was early on in the process, and as anyone who’s been around the industry knows, projects change all the time. As of right now, nobody can accurately say whether that gimmick has stayed in tact all the way through this point in development, but now that Gary Oldman is attached, at least we don’t have to be worried if it turns into a talker.

Albert Hughes is ditching his brother to go solo behind the camera on this one. The pair co-directed Oldman and Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli, and now The Hollywood Reporter says Oldman is on board with Motor City to add another villain role to his resume. Dominic Cooper (The Devil’s Double, Captain America) is starring along with Amber Heard in the movie, “about a small-time hood who is framed and sent to prison, only to exact revenge years later to get back the woman he loves.” Oldman is the “kingpin-type” who has the woman in his grasp.

Sounds like another The Count of Monte Cristo re-telling for the modern day. I’m fine with that – Monte Cristo is one of my favorite stories, and I’m always down for seeing fresh takes on classic tales. Hopefully the whole “one line of dialogue” thing sticks through to the end, because that would truly make the movie stand out among its competitors. I’m grasping at straws here, but maybe with The Artist doing well, audiences will be more willing to sit through a basically silent film? Yeah, you’re right – probably not. But here’s hoping. Filming begins in April.

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When last year’s nominations were announced, there were very few surprises. The general consensus was that things went as expected. This year, however, the Academy spiced things up with a bunch of snubs and surprises.

SNUBS

Michael Fassbender (Shame), Leonardo DiCaprio (J Edgar), and Ryan Gosling (Drive and The Ides of March) are all missing from the Best Actor category. I did not expect all three to make the cut, but I did expect at least one of them to get a nod. It seems the Academy decided to snub the 30-somethings in favor of the old guys this year.

The Adventures of Tintin didn’t land a Best Animated Feature nomination. This just goes to show how different the Oscars are from the Golden Globes. Just nine days after Steven Spielberg’s animated film beat out its competitors at the Globes, it only manages to nab a Best Original Score nomination from the Academy.

Albert Brooks (Drive) is absent from the Best Supporting Actor race. I’m actually quite happy with the five nominees in this category, but Brooks is a well-respected actor who has a heavy force earlier on this awards season. That kind of formula often equates to an Oscar nod, but it looks like his momentum died out too early.

One of the strangest snubs is in the Original Song category. For some reason, the members of the Academy only felt two songs from the entire year were worth nominating. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enormously happy that Bret McKenzie is getting some love from his work on The Muppets, but historically, there have never been less than three nominated songs, and prior to 1946 there were often ten. Was 2011 such an awful year for music in the movies? I doubt it. The list of songs that could have been added to the mix is a long one, including any one of the five that were nominated at the Golden Globes, or even a handful of other songs from The Muppets.

Nothing at all for 50/50. Nobody could have been expecting much, but there are many who thought that a Best Original Screenplay nod was coming.

Tilda Swinton was left off the ballot for her performance in We Need to Talk About Kevin. It would have been much more shocking if Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) or Viola Davis (The Help) had been snubbed, but ripples of outrage at Swinton’s absence have emerged and are mostly directed at the inclusion of Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) in her place. Mara’s presence shouldn’t be such a surprise, however, considering her performance in Fincher’s blockbuster has been universally praised, and she’s been nominated for several other awards, including the Golden Globe.

SURPRISES

Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Demián Bichir (A Better Life) fill in the Best Actor slots. A lot of people will be praising the cinematic gods for the fact that Oldman, who has long been considered one of the most underrated actors around, has finally snagged his first Oscar nomination. He garnered some significant buzz early on, but much of that faded until last week’s BAFTA nominations were announced. It’s not a huge surprise, but it is a pleasant one. Bichir’s presence in the category has some folks scratching their heads, not because of his performance, but because they have no idea who he is. Bichir is well-known actor in Mexico, but has only recently received much exposure elsewhere, largely due to his role on TV’s Weeds. He has shown up from time to time in other awards this year (he’s nominated for a SAG award and Independent Spirit Award), so his nomination isn’t entirely out of the blue. But it is a surprise, considering other actors, such as the aforementioned Fassbender and DiCaprio, had much more buzz surrounding them.

Bridesmaids gets some love. Not only did Melissa McCarthy nab a Best Supporting Actor nod, which isn’t a surprise so much as a relief, but Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo have found themselves matched up against the likes of Woody Allen and Michel Hazanavicius in the Best Original Screenplay competition.

Hugo gets eleven nominations–more than any other film this year. It looks like Scorsese’s family flick is steadily gaining momentum as the Oscars near. Each individual nomination isn’t surprising, but the grand total is somewhat staggering. The general expectation was that The Artist would lead the nominations. Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film is still the Best Picture front runner, but Hugo is making a strong play for the big prize through the sheer number of nominations, and due to the fact that Martin Scorsese has been a long-time Oscar darling, even if it took the Academy so long to finally give him a directing trophy.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close gets a Best Picture nod. All right, with ten potential Best Picture slots, it’s hard to say that anything is really a surprise, but this movie hasn’t had a particularly strong showing this awards season, and its critical reception has been hit-and-miss at best. It currently sits at 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn’t the ultimate authority on Oscar-worthy film making, but certainly indicates that the movie isn’t winning over its audiences.

Speaking of the Best Picture category, nine out of a possible ten films made the cut. What movie do you think should have filled in that gap? Who else do you think was snubbed? Sound off in the comments below.

The 84th Academy Awards ceremony airs on Sunday, February 26th. You can see the full list of nominations here.

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Bootlegs have been popping up over the weekend but Warner Bros. has today released the second official trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. It begins with Alfred worrying about Bruce and slowly builds, with Selina Kyle warning him “there’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne”. Then chants begin, a football field crumbles, Bane emerges, and the Batwing roars down a Gotham street. We also get brief glimpses at Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gary Oldman.

Watch below:

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release on July 20th, 2012. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles alongside Anne Hathaway (Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

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When people ask me how my reviews go from my head to the page, a criteria about how you have to back up something you claim the movie does, or doesn’t, always is addressed on my end.  For instance, you can’t just say, “this movie is as painful as an enema;” you have to be able to explain why it is annoying as a tube going up your ass.

This is one of the rare times where yours truly just wants to say the following: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is extremely boring.  It just is.  Its 127 minutes of absolutely nothing happening for the most part.  By the time this plodding script gets to something quasi-stimulating, it already lost you nearly an hour ago.

Spy conspiracies usually have some kick to them.  Even the ones that are quiet and take their time will almost always have a jolt or two in them while they’re building toward the climax.  Well, unless you’re last year’s The American that is.  The only element about this flick is how it can give Nyquil a run for its money.  Better yet, one will fall asleep faster watching this than getting put under by a dentist.

The plot isn’t all that unique from what we’ll call “administrative spy mysteries” (ones with seldom action and a lot of old-man conversations).  A group of senior British intelligence agents (played by Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, David Denick and John Hurt) run the “Circus” during the Cold War Era.  After an operation in Hungary involving agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) goes wrong, a former agent in George Smiley (Gary Oldman) comes out of retirement almost a year later to investigate why this occurred.  His light research leads him to the conclusion that one of the senior agents is a possible mole for the Russians.  As he speaks with other agents involved (played by Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch and Kathy Burke) with that particular mission, he inches closer to who or whom may be leaking information to the Soviets.

Had the makings to be riveting and intense, but sadly, this flick never comes close to that.  As the screenplay begins jumping back-n-forth depicting the time when the Hungary operation went south, to his present investigation, it becomes a chore to keep up with where we’re at regarding the story and characters.  The goal is to portray a realistic account and avoid using all the gimmicks and flash found in the majority of spy-thrillers.  And while that could make for an engrossing story – on paper – this is almost too thorough and intelligent for the cinematic screen.

This is essentially Gary Oldman walking around in a trench coat having chats with all the players above; some of which who get a minor backstory, while others are just used as place-holders.  And while it is an admirable effort by Oldman leading this accomplished cast, only Tom Hardy provides a glimmer of life in the dialogue department.

The funny or ironic thing; a movie that fires off only a couple rounds is in fact an effective killer…in the entertainment department.

Overall, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy reveals nothing interesting or compelling to encourage anyone to seek this out.  Unless you’re sleep deprived.

RATING: 2 out of 5

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Anarchy ensues on the streets of Gotham City, at least that’s what we get out of the recent batch of videos coming from the set of The Dark Knight Rises, now filming in New York. Three videos showing different takes from what looks like an important scene in the movie found their way onto YouTube and thanks to IGN, we have them here for you. As always, if you want to go into The Dark Knight Rises spoiler-free, I recommend you skip this.

In the last video we see Batman going up against Bane in the middle of the street, surrounded by people beating the crap out of each other. SPOILER, if you ask me, it doesn’t seem like he’s winning that fight. Also, with so many extras on the set, this looks really expensive, not to mention they are filming on Wall Street no less. This could end up costing easily $250 million when done. But considering The Dark Knight made over $1 billion in box office receipts worldwide, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. spared no expenses on this one.

There’s also a video showing some photos of Batman and Bane from the set:

Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Liam Neeson. Set to open July 20th 2012, The Dark Knight Rises is easily one of the most highly anticipated movies of next year and videos like this only serve to send the hype meter into overdrive.

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Warner Bros. released our first official look at Anne Hathaway in her Catwoman costume back in August and it seemed Christopher Nolan had replaced the traditional ‘cat ears’ with hi-tech goggles.

However some new set images have appeared online over at Just Jared of Anne Hathaway in her costume, and she’s wearing cat ears.

In past incarnations the cat ears have mainly been used for aesthetic reasons, giving the character a more feline appearance to fit with the name, but here Nolan seems to have given them a practical use. The primary function of these hi-tech goggles is still unknown, but when not in use they could give the appearance of cat ears on top of her head. If that’s the idea it’s quite a smart and interesting take on the design, but we’ll have to see if they work on-screen when The Dark Knight Rises hits next July.

You can see more set images, which include Christian Bale in his Batman suit and Gary Oldman as Comissioner Gordon, by clicking here.

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There has been a huge amount of interest in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ever since Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and other equally talented actors joined the film last year, and the teaser trailer gave the indication we had a quality film on our hands.

Today Studio Canal and Working Title released a great new international trailer for the film, and it has the kick-ass ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ track from X-Men: First Class as the backdrop.

Watch below:

Based on John Le Carre‘s Cold War novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy follows a retired MI6 agent (Oldman) who is called back to ferret out a Soviet mole hiding among the highest ranks of the MI6. The cast also includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciaran Hinds, Svetlana Khodchenko, Toby Jones, John Hurt, Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke.

Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish director behind Let the Right One, is directing a script by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon).

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will be released September 16 in the U.K., and an awards-friendly November 18 in the U.S.

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Bootlegs of The Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer started appearing online last week after Warner Bros. attached it to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. They were swiftly removed, but now the studio has released the teaser online in HD for all to see.

The teaser is mostly made up of footage from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, with some new shots of Tom Hardy as Bane and Gary Oldman’s Lieutenant Gordon thrown in.

Watch below:

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release on July 20th, 2012 and filming is still taking place. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles alongside Anne Hathaway (Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

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SHH has received word from “a trustworthy source” that the teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises will be attached to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 when it is released next weekend. Not only that, Warner Bros. will also be releasing a teaser poster in the near future.

The site says the teaser trailer is a minute and 33 seconds long and will play in 3D theaters, 2D theaters and IMAX 3D screens. Trailers are usually released during the week, around Wednesday, but so far there has been no confirmation as to when the teaser will appear online.

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release on July 20th, 2012 and is currently filming. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles alongside Anne Hathaway (Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

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There has been a considerable amount of interest in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ever since Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and other equally talented actors joined the film last year.

Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish director behind Let the Right One, is directing a script by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), and today interest reached a new high with the release of the first trailer.

Watch below:

Based on John Le Carre‘s Cold War novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy follows a retired MI6 agent (Oldman) who is called back to ferret out a Soviet mole hiding among the highest ranks of the MI6. The cast also includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciaran Hinds, Svetlana Khodchenko, Toby Jones, John Hurt, Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will be released September 16 in the U.K., and an awards-friendly November 18 in the U.S.

Read similar posts to First trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy at Filmonic