Famed actor Omar Sharif has died at the age of 83 from a heart attack. He was best known for the films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Earlier this year, the Egypt-born actor had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Sharif was born Michel Shalhoub in Alexandria in 1932 and got his acting training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. His first film was the 1954 Egyptian film Siraa Fil-Wadi (The Blazing Sun) and he soon became a big star.
Sharif's international fame came when he was cast in David Lean's 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia, opposite actor Peter O'Toole. The two soon became fast friends. He rejoined director David Lean to play the lead in Doctor Zhivago, a film about a physician who gets caught up in the Russian Revolution. He was also in a series of biopics, where he played historical figures such as Genghis Khan and Che Guevara.
Despite being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, Sharif still knew that he was a famous international star. His death was announced by his grandson Omar Sharif Jr in a Facebook post.
In Disney's complete cash-grab that is the Star Wars continuation movies, a series of standalone movies will be produced that take place outside of the main saga storyline, but still take place with in the universe. The first one that is being made is Star Wars: Rogue One and will be released sometime in 2016. It will be about the mission to steal the plans to destroy the original Death Star. The second movie to be announced is a Boba Fett origin story. And now we have confirmation of the third film: Han Solo.
Now before you get excited thinking that this that is going to be a Harrison Ford adventure, well I'm here to disappoint you. It will focus on a younger Han and how he "became the smuggler, thief and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley." Hopefully we'll also learn how he first met Chewbacca as well.
While no casting announcements have been made (and I'm sure they haven't even started to look for anyone yet), we know that the film will be directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord of 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie fame, while the script will be written by father and son team Lawrence and Jon Kasdan. Lawrence Kasdan co-wrote both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as the Indiana Jones movies. His son Jon has written mainly for TV with his credits including Freaks and Geeks. This untitled Han Solo movie is due in 2018.
Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens is scheduled for release on December 18, 2015.
We tend not to report to much on celebrity deaths at the blog to often, unless that person was a huge star. But upon reading the news that producer Jerry Weintraub had died, I thought I better write a little something.
Now that name might not mean anything to you, but Weintraub was behind one of the most beloved movie franchises of all time; The Karate Kid. He produced all five of the movies, yes even the Jaden Smith one. He also produced the Ocean's Eleven series, starring George Clooney, and had a cameo in each one, as well as the classic Robert Altman film Nashville.
Before getting into the movie business, he was a music manager and promoted big stars like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dolly Parton and the Beach Boys.
Weintraub died on Monday of cardiac arrest in Santa Barbara, California. He was 77 and survived by his wife Jane, four children and five grandchildren.
Marvel boss Kevin Feige has the premise of the upcoming Spider-Man movie that will take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He describes it as being "a John Hughes movie". His motive for this comment is due to the fact that it takes place largely while Peter Parker is still in high school. Well, as you all know that we love our John Hughes movies here at the blog. So, we can only guess at which movie it will be like. Will it be The Breakfast Club with Peter sitting around in detention with Mary Jane, Flash Thompson and Harry Osborne? Or will he chase around Gwen Stacey in a reverse Sixteen Candles? We all know it won't be at all like Ferris Bueller's Day Off because Peter Parker is nowhere near as cool as Ferris.
And since we didn't talk about the casting when it happened, I suppose it's high time I raised my concerns with Tom Holland. It seems to me that with each iteration of Spider-Man, the studios are trying to make Peter Parker cooler and cooler while missing the point of what the character represents. If you were a "cool" kid growing up, you probably wanted to be Iron Man or Captain America or Wolverine, if you were slightly rebellious, smoked and wore leather jackets. The whole idea of Spider-Man is that as soon he put on the mask he transformed from a nerdy, shy teenager into a witty superhero, thus becoming a role model for anyone with social anxiety. Tom Holland has been in a handful of movies, including Locke and The Impossible and I doubt will ever be able to match Tobey Maguire's level of geekiness.
The next revelation from Feige is that he will come up against a villain who has yet to be seen in the movies. Now there are only a handful of major villains who haven't shown up in the movies that have been made up to now. They are Chameleon, Mysterio, Vulture, Scorpion and Kraven the Hunter. Anything further than those and you risk losing people who aren't all that familiar with the comics. Personally, I'd be happy with Mysterio, but that might be a boring movie.
Chris Farley was one of the biggest names in comedy in the 1980s and generally agreed by everyone to be the funniest man ever. He is also one of my biggest influences when it comes to comedy, because he never took himself seriously. This raw documentary features interviews from everyone in comedy, including his close friends David Spade and Adam Sandler, as well as Christina Applegate, Mike Myers, Dan Aykroyd, Bob Odenkirk, Jay Mohr and Bob Saget.
Tig
Okay, I know this one is a Netflix documentary, but you all have Netflix, right? This one is next in the Jack loves comedy, so let's all sit through comedy documentaries edition of Trailers. It is about hilarious comedian Tig Notaro, who toured with an act about the cancer she had. Doesn't look as dark as that Chris Farley one, but it's probably still going to be sad.
Ten Thousand Saints
A father takes his son to live with him in 1980s New York where they bond over music. Starring Ethan Hawke, Emily Mortimer, Emile Hirsch, Hailee Steinfeld and Asa Butterfield.
Secret in Their Eyes
After the brutal murder of her daughter, an FBI investigator goes rogue trying to find her killer. Basically a female Liam Neeson. Starring Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dean Norris and Doug Stamper.
Steve Jobs
Danny Boyle's Aaron Sorkin-written biopic of Steve Jobs looks like it will be very intense and follow along in a similar vein to Sorkin's other works The Social Network and The Newsroom. Starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Katherine Waterston, Jeff Daniels and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Creed
Since Sylvester Stallone is way too old to don his boxing gloves and get back in the ring, the studios need a new way to make money off the old underdog boxing story. Enter Adonis Creed, estranged son of Apollo. And he needs a trainer, so enter Rocky. Boom, sequel is born! Starring Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson and Tony Bellew.
London Has Fallen
Seriously guys? Come on, needless sequel making has to stop. Let me hold back a bit of bile while I write this. It's a sequel of Olympus Has Fallen where, get this, terrorists have taken over London. And who happens to be visiting on that very day? The President of the United States and his trusty bodyguard. Starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Jackie Earle Haley, Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo. Seriously Melissa, you have an Oscar, you don't need to do this.
Snowden
Oh wow, guys, I don't know what to say. A biopic about whistleblower Edward Snowden directed by Oliver Stone. Now Stone is a major left wing hitter, but after making W, this movie really good go either way. It could portray him as a major hero or vilify him as the worst person in the world. Either way, it's probably best you all go see Citizenfour to get the actual story before you see this. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Rhys Ifans and Nicolas Cage(?)
Jenny's Wedding
This is literally a big budget movie for people who can't come to terms with gay marriage. That's it, it's said. Sure, it's okay to condemn it when you don't know any gay people, but when it's your own daughter, well gosh, that's a different story. Starring Katherine Heigl, Alexis Bledel and Tom Wilkinson.
Statlen Island Summer
Netflix is really on a roll with it's original content. This movie comes from SNL producer Lorne Michaels and stars Ashley Greene, Bobby Moynihan, Fred Armisen and Will Forte.
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
Another Netflix series, this is the prequel to David Wain's 2001 indie comedy and stars everyone playing the same roles they had in the original, but "younger". Starring Janeane Garofalo, Jason Schwartzman, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, Amy Poehler and Bradley Cooper.
The image that I always had of singer Amy Winehouse was that of a drunk girl with a beehive stumbling around London. But Asif Kapida's astonishing and terrifying documentary smashes that perception completely.
The film begins with a fourteen year old Amy singing happy birthday to her best friend Lauren Gilbert in 1998. The film then flashes forward three years to the beginning of Amy's career as a jazz singer. From here, we see her creative beginnings with the release of her first album Frank, through to the beginning of her troubles when meeting future husband Blake Fielder, the sudden rise to fame with her next album Back to Black, on which her most famous single "Rehab" was a part and then her downfall when she started to do heroin and crack cocaine.
This documentary is so sad because despite starting off with a cheery hopeful girl who just wants to make music, you ultimately know how the story ends. But even in those early years, we find that not everything was as happy as the footage we see presents itself. She suffered from bulimia, and although she said she was okay with the fact that her father left her family when she was young, you can really see how much an impact it had on her, especially in the interactions she had with her father later in her life.
Mitch Winehouse (her father) has come out and condemned this film for the portrayal of Amy and his family, but it seems as though he is only covering himself. I don't think he was portrayed in any way other than how he appears in footage that is presented, as someone who only came back into Amy's life once she started to make a lot of money. Also her husband Blake Fielder impacted negatively on Amy's life, although he came across hugely regretful of what he did to her in introducing heroin to her life. The other group that comes across negatively in this film is that of the media, especially the paparazzi. Toward the end of the film there are entire sequences of footage that I found unable to watch because of the amount of camera flashes. This level of fame began to weigh on Amy, as all she wanted to do was make music.
What I thought was really powerful is that this film is made up entirely of archive footage taken by Amy, her friends like Nick Shymanksy and her bodyguard Andrew Morris (who considered her family), as well as television interviews and concert footage. All the interviews are audio over these images and we don't see a single person as they appear today. This really lends weight to the fact that this documentary is all about the talented life of Amy Winehouse.
Ultimately, it is a sad and reverential film that will leave you stunned after you watch it for a while. If only she had have lived longer to complete her dream of created a supergroup made up of Yasiin Bey (formally known as Mos Def), Questlove of the Roots, Raphael Saadiq and herself. If you don't know who any of those people are, let me tell you, it would have been the best band ever.
As an avid fan of Terminator 1-3, and somebody who personally didn't really mindSalvation (which is saying something), I have been of course eagerly awaiting the release of the latest instalment in the kickass time-travelling cybernetic organism series Terminator Genisys, no matter how poorly it has been first received by critics. It's now Alan Taylor's (Thor: The Dark World) shot at the franchise and it begins full-circle, with a different take on the events of the first film.
In 2029, the human Resistance, led by John Connor (Jason Clarke) seek to destroy Skynet's super-weapon, a time machine that will allow them to effectively win the war. By the time they arrive, Skynet has already sent the T-800 back to 1984 to attack Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). John sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to protect her, but as the machine begins its process, Kyle sees John get attacked by another of the Resistance fighters (Matt Smith) and simultaneously receives memories from an alternative version of his twelve year-old self.
The T-800 arrives back in 1984 and confronts a group of punks for their clothes, just as he did in the original movie The Terminator, however Sarah Connor and a reprogrammed T-800 known as Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) - and affectionately referred to as "Pop" by Sarah - turn up and destroy the T-800, altering the original timeline. Similarly as Kyle arrives, the two turn up to rescue him from an attacking T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun). After consulting Kyle's flashbacks from his alternative self, Kyle and Sarah travel to 2017 whilst Guardian waits 33 years for their arrival as they attempt to prevent the new Judgement Day from happening...again.
Dealing with the often-confusing concepts of time travel can really screw with the audience' heads, and is one of the core constructs of the Terminator franchise that has remained largely unexplored. Yes, the leads are almost always trying to change the future and prevent events from happening, but in Genisys the characters are negotiating an altered timeline and are shifting through time. No, this isn't a crossover with Back to the Future - despite the lovable reference to the 80s style Nike shoes from the first Terminator - but is a change in focus that attempts to breathe new life into the series, whilst remaining true to its roots. For the most part, it achieves this. It's a relatively easy to follow plot that promises new adventures with the same old Terminator vibe. The classic 'arrival' sequence from The Terminator is mimicked beautifully here even without a digitally de-aged Bill Paxton, and I must say, the CG/prosthetic effects utilised to bring young Arnie back are much better than the attempt in Salvation. It's genuinely like watching an alternate version of the first film.
There are constant references for fans to enjoy from the first films, and not just the obvious one-liners and beautifully cheesy attempted smiles. The T-1000 is back! Hoorah! The clichés are embraced - If you like predicting character's lines, you'll love this - and whilst it follows the core formula of many of the previous films, even down to the classic terminator v terminator finale, there's enough substance for it to be both intriguing and endlessly enjoyable. Moving away from Salvation, they choose not to introduce numerous new and uselessly specific terminators and stick with the tried and true classics, other than the compulsory badass new model. The one thing I can't work out is why they have T-800 models - effectively their soldiers - driving trucks? That might be a gap in my fan knowledge base but with all the computerised UAVs and whatnot that they have, surely the machines are capable of putting in a small microchip to drive their vehicles!
The one area that the film is somewhat let down in is casting. I don't quite understand Hollywood's obsession with hiring British and Australian actors and making them put on poor American accents. Out of the actors for Sarah Connor, John Connor, Kyle Reese, the T-800 (Guardian), T-1000 and the T-5000, the only American citizen is Arnold Schwarzenegger?? There's also a question of likenesses. The plot harks back to the original films, and Jason Clarke and Jai Courtney are passable as Michael Edwards and Michael Bien respectively, but Emilia Clarke is much more of the Sarah Connor Chronicles era. Also, Matt Smith's role could have easily allowed for a British persona instead of his terrible American accent. J. K. Simmons's character, who is essentially the fall guy that everybody passes off as a nut job, was actually very likeable I found, despite his small screen time, which just goes to prove that he really deserved that Oscar!
Terminator Genisys revamps the Terminator franchise and embraces the past films that everybody loves. The action is visceral and only occasionally over the top. It sets up for the customary sequel of modern Hollywood high concept films, and for once, I'm genuinely excited. The bad reviews? I guess haters gonna hate, but this is ultimately a movie for the fans.
Famed actor Omar Sharif has died at the age of 83 from a heart attack. He was best known for the films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Earlier this year, the Egypt-born actor had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
