The new UK trailer for American Gangster comes in the British equivalent of a red band edit. Download it in 100k, 330k, 850k or 1500k Quicktime versions - or even 1500k Windows or 1500k Real Media if you want.
There's even a 12 certificate edit - again Quicktime, again 100, 330, 850 or 1500k versions - if you want that too.
I reviewed American Gangster a couple of weeks ago - and very, very good it was too.
American Gangster is one of the year's best films (alongside Hot Fuzz, Ratatouille, Goya's Ghosts, Son of Rambow, Across the Universe... what else am I forgetting?) and you can now gee yourself up for it's November release with a new featurette.
Choose from 480p, 720p and 1080p resolution. Right click to save and rename the file something like howyousaygdaybruce.mov to ensure it works.
Expect only minor spoilers in this review. Indeed, you can expect me to dance around a few plot points that have been made public knowledge in a lot of discussion of the film so far. I think you're better off not knowing some of those things before the film gets around to telling you them itself.
Michael Mann's Heat famously culminates in the first onscreen pairing of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, presented as a larger than life cop and a robber duo coming together for a cup of coffee and a chat. It's tempting to see a climactic scene in American Gangster as tipping a wink to this once-historic meeting of method masters but, not to spoil anything, it certainly doesn't take place in a stylised diner and, to be honest, I doubt the combination of Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington will generate anything like the same amount of buzz. As the reviews start coming in, however, I expect this to be just one point of comparison between the two films even while, in actuality, they are worlds apart in execution, and therefore effect.
Bookended between 'Based on a True Story' and 'what happened next' title cards, American Gangster is, at the very least, plausibly realistic - sufficiently so that the minor issues of actual realism and minute historical accuracy can be easily discounted without investigation. It tells twin stories, the two threads that come together for something like the Heat moment, of Frank Lucas, the title character as played by Washington, and the cop Richie Roberts, played by Crowe, who ultimately ends up on his case. Before these stories entwine closely, however, they wind away separately - Frank climbing the ranks of Harlem drug dealers and, accordingly, celebrity night club empresarios; Richie going through a divorce and becoming a pariah amongst the bent coppers on the force through his incorruptibility. Thankfully, there's sufficient narrative drive and incident in the long stretch before the ultimate collision between Frank and Richie is inevitable, that nothing much feels wasteful or needlessly expositional, and the film never depends on jaded generic familiarity to tell us 'It's okay, this is all going to a showdown'. Indeed, Frank and Richie could have quite easily spent a good chunk more of the movie in their individual orbits without the audience wishing it would all come crashing to earth. That they are brought together through sensible cause and effect, and that it all reads clearly in the plotting, only guarantees that we're happy tracing the routes laid out for us.
Not that there aren't echoes and points of similarity between the two stories from the earliest opening scenes and, of course, one rather tired argument can still be heard rumbling in the background - that good guy and bad guy have so much in common - but over that relatively uninspiring bassline, there's a whole lot more. One early sequence with a dead junkie in Richie's storyline subtly resonates with a key plan of Frank's that, much later, Richie has to crack and I couldn't help but wonder if it was an invention of screenwriter Steve Zaillian or director Ridley Scott or if they were just highlighting this curious collusion of independent lives.
Overall, Frank's story is ultimately the more compelling - he gets title billing after all, and is, in effect the thing that happens to Richie, rather than Richie being the thing that happens to him. One particularly well-devised set of ups, downs and ups again in his rise to power revolves around ego, high fashion and flash, dramatised with the help of a crazy big fur coat (which is in a way somewhat reminiscent of Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka and her hate-love affair with decadent western hats). Frank ultimately undergoes much more change than Richie, is surrounded with a much more attention-grabbing cast of secondary characters - including the brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor as one of his brothers - and, in the final evaluation, can be seen as being subject to the film's real lessons. Washington is generally better than Crowe, too - and not only because he doesn't end up delivering a number of his lines in an Australian accent.
As you'd expect for a Ridley Scott film, the production design and cinematography are absolutely top-notch stuff and, in fact, they even rise towards the top in Scott's exceptional pantheon. I could list details of set and shot design all day long, but do keep a close look out for the small church across the street from Frank's chosen place of worship, the phone numbers and notes doodled on Richie's wall by his phone, or the way Scott flaunts the final hiding place (ahem) of Frank's supply in the third-act search scene. This is truly a film of many, many layers, visual, auditory and narrative, most of them quite brilliantly conceived, often very imaginative and fundamentally cinematical. Because of this I think American Gangster has now bumped Matchstick Men aside and taken its place as the best of Scott's films since the incredible early years run of The Duellists, Alien and Bladerunner. Specific mention must also go to editor Pietro Scalia who, a few deliberate jump cuts aside, knocks just about every splice in the film out of the park. A raid on a drug processing operation in a tenement block showcases the same kind of comprehensible chaos that Scalia preserved flawlessly in Black Hawk Down.
My hands down favourite moment in the film comes in a dramatisation of the Ali-Frazier bout of 1971. It's relatively early in the investigation and Richie Roberts is tracking Frank Lucas, still not yet clear on who he is, or quite what impact he is having on the city's organised crime and drug trade. The cop has a camera and snaps a couple of shots of the gangster, flashed up on screen as still images as he does so. As we move from the first to the second, not only is Frank's character crystallized but we understand that Richie himself now understands who this guy really is, and something of what he's going to have to do now. It's awesome stuff - a monumental moment in the story related largely by two still images - if dependent, of course, on their surrounding shots and other info we've been fed here and there in the scene, if not elsewhere in the film. This is why I go to the cinema, for bolts of lightning like this.
American Gangster is released in November in most territories, by the end of January in most others. Do your best to see it, and see it on a very big screen and with very good sound. This cops 'n' pushers film is a genuine classic, easily the best of its kind since The French Connection and, any comparison between Hackman and Crowe or that car chase aside, better even than that.
3:10 to Yuma is still a few days away from a UK release, so publicty teams on this side of the pond are keeping on it, working busily.
Here's an example: five clips from the film have now been made available. Download them - one, two, three, four and five.
If you look at the file titles, it seems to suggest that, perhaps, five more clips will be coming soon.
See Bale and Crowe be wild, west and wily in the trailer for 3:10 to Yuma. Choose from low, medium and high resolution versions of the standard definition version or 480p, 720p and 1080p versions of high definition.
Rename the file horsemurderers.mov (or similar) to ensure it works.
Courtesy of Yahoo, download the American Gangster trailer in low, medium or high resolution normal definition, or 480p, 720p or 1080p high definition.
The American Gangster site is now live, and has a small number of stills for you to enjoy. They've so few, so far, that I've only run one below.
Expect more from the American Gangster script review later in the week.
I was just trying to find out yesterday if Ridley Scott was indeed attached to direct Nottingham, after the rumours kept bubbling up, but it seems like I needn't have bothered - Variety have made the announcement today. Could have saved myself some tongue, shoe and keyboard leather.
Simon Reynolds reviewed the film's script here a few weeks back, and his commentary makes for a great read.
James Mangold and crew got a bit miffed when I posted some 3:10 to Yuma pics a few months back. When I removed them, they promised to send me official snaps as soon as there were any. Now, however, they've released a couple of official images to Cinempire and not said a word to me. Like, whatever, man...
You can see the images below. Thankfully, I can surf the web and find images myself.
Courtesy of Simon - who may well end up being quite a regular contributor to film ick - here is a script review for Nottingham, the Robin Hood project with Russell Crowe attached. Enjoy.
The character of Robin Hood has been around for hundreds of years, and because of that pretty much every story that can be told about him has been. He’s appeared as a vibrant, technicoloured Errol Flynn, as a talking Disney fox, and as Kevin Costner, in a film that was used as a vehicle to sell a Bryan Adams song.
Sooner or later, Hollywood was bound to take another crack at England’s favourite outlaw, and Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, the writers behind TV drama Sleeper Cell have done just that. Their spec script, titled Nottingham, is Robin Hood reversed - setting up the Sheriff as the hero and Robin Hood as the antagonist. Russell Crowe will pocket $20 million to play the Sheriff and Ridley Scott, Sam Raimi, Bryan Singer and Jon Turteltaub have all been linked with the directors’ chair. Rumours are that the project will lens in New Zealand later this year.
The general thinking behind this new interpretation of Robin Hood is that perhaps the Sheriff of Nottingham wasn’t such a bad guy after all, instead he has been distorted into a villain as the Robin Hood yarn has been passed down from generation to generation. The script for Nottingham bears the tagline “There are two sides to every legend…”, and, in Nottingham, Reiff and Voris decide to give the Sheriff’s testimony.
The writers obviously have a keen eye for history with events and characters thrown into a loose historical timeline, something that’s quite refreshing to see in what is essentially a period popcorn film. King Richard’s capturing of Cyprus is used to set up the Sheriff’s background, we get a small but substantial role for Eleanor of Aquitaine, and a huge battle at Nottingham Castle, which is based on a real event, plays a part in the third act.
The story begins in late 12th century Cyprus with Sir Robert Tornham battling in the Crusades. He’s a good soldier, a leader, and his reward from King Richard is to be appointed the Sheriff of Cyprus. Tornham’s stay is short-lived, however, when a letter from Richard notifies him he’s to be the new Sheriff of Nottingham. Tornham and his Squire, Thomas (a role seemingly written for Michael Caine) pack up and head to England.
In Richard’s absence, England is ruled by Prince John and the city of Nottingham, second only to London in size, is in crisis. There’s a Norman/Saxon divide, a mysterious hooded outlaw causing trouble and a recent gruesome murder involving a pair of young Nobles. Sir Guy of Gisbourne suspects Robin Hood (formerly Sir Robin of Locksley, a Nobleman who was outlawed for defending a man accused of killing one of the King’s deer) is behind the murders and the new Sheriff begins the manhunt.
Tornham meets Marian, Robin’s fiancé, and is immediately smitten. The pair become close, Marian is a fine archer and attempts to coach the slow-to-learn Sheriff, but both know that their relationship has no future. Marian is devoted to Robin and they will wed once his title is restored by King Richard, and the Sheriff ultimately wants to track down Robin and bring him to justice.
Nottingham is certainly an in interesting script but it doesn’t quite live up to the hype. The first act is all set-up and lengthy exposition - what we get is a lot of scenes introducing us to familiar characters… and a medieval police procedural TV show with Tornham trying to figure out entry/exit arrow wounds and such other things that are more David Caruso’s field.
That said, things pick up once Robin Hood appears at around the 40 page mark. As Tornham rides in Sherwood Forest he becomes lost and is ambushed by Robin and his Merry Men - there is no Will Scarlet, by the way, or Friar Tuck (though his name is mentioned), and Little John gets a fleeting cameo. Despite being less than white Robin’s character is far from a traditional villain - he is charismatic and confident, a Robin in the Errol Flynn mould.
One of the problems with this story is that by making Tornham the “anti-Rickman” you take away much of what makes the character great. He is far more watchable when he’s cancelling Christmas and being an evil bastard… this Sheriff is somewhat dull. Robin Hood is a great myth because you have the romantic notion of the outsider fighting the corrupt system. In Nottingham that is true of both Robin and the Sheriff. However Robin lives in exile in Sherwood Forest and the Sheriff is in Nottingham Castle trying to make things better by being a part of the system. Who really wants to side with a guy who is part of the status quo?
Nottingham isn’t a bad script but it feels like a missed opportunity. Reiff and Voris wanted to re-invent something familiar and I applaud them for doing so, but they seem to be holding back, not quite going the whole nine yards for fear it they might go too far. If they made Robin Hood the real bad guy and the Sheriff the hero then maybe it would’ve worked better - at least for me, anyway. It’s clichéd, of course, but the real world isn’t black and white but shades of grey. That’s the colour used to paint this Robin Hood tale and unfortunately it just isn’t as exciting as a good old-fashioned battle of good vs. evil.
According to The Daily Express (not my favourite newspaper), Russell Crowe is up for the title role in Neil Marshall's Sherlock Holmes. Apparently, he'll be getting into a few sword fights and plenty of bare-knuckle brawling. What about Watson? I bet they go for somebody like Mackenzie Crook. Or maybe Nick Frost.
Sounds like a disaster. And I love Nick Frost.
Jonathan Pryce is playing Holmes on the BBC's new Baker Street Irregulars show, and his Watson is Bill Patterson. Suits me much better.
Crowe is to direct his first film soon and I think it's going to be about Pat Wright and Dave Arrowsmith.
Damn... I hope you got that joke. I really hope somebody got that joke.
Lionsgate have spirited the pictures away... for now. I still have them, and when I can do something with them that isn't going to cause trouble for folk, then I'll do it.
Russell Crowe is to play the Sheriff of Nottingham in... well, in Nottingham, appropriately enough. The film is a thoroughly revisionist retread of the Robin Hood stories, this time with the Sheriff as our protagonist and unruly Robin as the antagonist. What's to say this ends up having some (most likely misfiring) critique of the Bush administration woven in? Something about how Robin's heroism is just mythical and how, really, he's just a crook? I wouldn't be surprised one iota. Comparing Bush to Robin Hood is a dangerous game, however, and runs the risk of simply being muddy. We'll see.
The film is now set up to go at Universal, freshly greenlit with a full tank of cash. At other studios Bryan Singer and Sam Raimi were actually attached to direct, but now it seems that both are out of the frame and, odds are, somebody somewhat less interesting will end up in the chair. Of course, one Tony Grisoni rewrite in this could make a very interesting Terry Gilliam project... but I'm not even going to hope.
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