Tag: oscar isaac

OSCAR ISAAC IS BERT IN MARY POPPINS: REDUX

HOLLYWOOD – Disney+ have announced Oscar Isaac is Bert in their all new Mary Poppins Cinematic Universe. The Star Wars heart-throb has impressed with his authentic English accent in Marvel’s upcoming Moon Knight. On the strength of that performance, he will play a modern day Bert in Disney’s update of the beloved classic. The Exec spoke with Oscar about his next project.

Oscar Isaac Is Bert! How Did That Come About?

Everyone loved my accent in the latest Moon Knight trailer that just dropped. The guys at Marvel and Disney had been looking for someone who could take over from Dick Van Dyke, heard me and before you can say Gawd Blimey, Wotcher Meery, I was cast as Bert. It surely is a draym carm trooo.

What Was That?

Sorry, I slipped into character for a second.

Has Anyone Else Been Cast?

I don’t want to break any rules but I’m sure it won’t hurt to let on that they’re going to go with a different concept or actor to play Mary every episode. It’ll be kinda like what they did for Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. Everyone remembers that massive hit, cor blimey guv!

How’s That Going To Work?

One episode they’ll have Helena Bonham Carter doing her thing, next week Kristen Wiig. Then for one episode they’ll have an iPad with Cocomelon playing on it. That’s how most kids are raised these days, cor blimey, pound-a-pound mushrooms, feed the bards tarppence.

So It’s Going To Be A TV Series And Not A Movie?

Yeah, that’s where all the decent content is nowadays. Look at the shit Disney and Marvel release as films now. They keep all the good stuff to stream. Guaranteed revenue streams aint it mate. Fees up Mother Brown!

But What About The Latest Spider-Man Movie? That’s The Highest Grossing Movie Ever.

That was down to Sony. Those f**kers, I mean, those rotters insisted on a cinematic release and they pushed the budget up, cor blimey. If that had been pure Marvel, no way would they have brought back Garfield and Maguire. They got lucky. If that property goes back 100% to Sony, they’ll f**k it up like they always did. Look what they did with Star Wars.

That Was Disney.

It was? Well bugger me backwards with me old boots. I’m up shit alley without a flick knife, I is and I aint. Blimey guv!

Burt And Mary Begins Production Shortly

FRANCIS COPPOLA REANIMATES BRANDO

EXCLUSIVE – Francis Coppola reanimates Brando for Megalopolis. Yesterday the film world was stunned with the announcement that Coppola is stumping up his own vineyard-earned dough to make his passion project, Megalopolis. What many do not know is that the director has reanimated the corpse of Marlon Brando to join the already, star studded cast. The Exec caught up with Coppola in San Francisco to discuss the revelations.

 

Francis, is it true that you are finally making Megalopolis?

Fucking A, that’s right bubba. I’m finally getting this bird off the ground. I got the script, I got the cast and I got the frickin’ money baby. Let’s light this fucking candle!

 

We understand you have a stellar cast lined up?

You betcha. We got Oscar Isaac, Forest Whitaker, Cate Blanchett, Jon Voight, Jessica Lange and my old buddy, James End-Of-Fucking-Tweet Caan.

 


Wow, that really is an all-star cast.

Yeah it’s ok, I guess, but it’s missing something. Know what I mean?

 

I really don’t. What could that list be missing?

Assholes. Someone who’s gonna cost millions of dollars a week to hire. An actor who’ll hold up production because they refuse to read the fucking script and I’ll have to read it to them. Someone that could out-asshole Val Kilmer. I’m talking Marlon Grando-Brando.

 

I guess, if that’s what you want. It’s a pity he’s dead.

Is he though?

 

Huh?

What if I told you that a certain someone had perfected that technology to reanimate a corpse? And a certain someone has gone and reanimated another certain difficult movie star’s corpse. He’s going to have a major supporting role in Megalopolis as an under-lit, overweight shadowy psychopath who grumbles and mumbles incoherent bullshit. It’s the good old days all over again.

 

Are you saying that you, Francis Coppola Reanimates Brando for Megalopolis?

Look, today’s movie stars are so shit scared of offending anyone or doing anything that could get them cancelled. We need some fucking cojones on this shoot. Smashed mirrors, bloodied fists, drug addled musings and some downright fucking bad behavior. We need headlines. That’s what gets people into theatres these days. Gone are the days of just shooting a great movie when you’re up against fucking Marvel. Look at the shit Marty still gets for saying the truth! We need Brando to fuck a ton of shit up. Look, relax. Have a glass of my wine. You can hardly taste the anti-freeze.

 

Yeah ok then. Salute!

 

Megalopolis Starts Shooting Next Year.

FIRST LOOK AT THE SCARFACE REMAKE

HOLLYWOOD – Luca Guadagnino’s new film Scarface gets its first picture.

News of Luca Guadagnino’s new version of Scarface hit the internets and excited much comment. Taken from a script by the Coen Brothers, Guadagnino’s film looks set to take on the iconic Brian De Palma version which starred Al Pacino.

We spoke with Luca yesterday and asked him what it was going to be like:

It’s going to be fantastico. Ecco the first picture from the film.

Can we publish this?

Certo. Of course. The new film will go back in time. The first one was too Eighties. I love it but it was you know trashy. In this version we’re going to go back to the classic RKO crime pictures. Black and white, as you can see, at the same kind of production design.

Wow! And who is this in the picture?

Oscar Isaac. He looks different, no?

Yes, he’s unrecog…

…nizable I know. Why you always say things I know Studio Exec? We made him up so that he had a scar and tried to make him look a little older too. I think he looks fantastic. The music is going to be by Hans Zimmer and is going to be just tubas. No other instruments. Just tubas all the time. Parp, parp, parp!

The new movie hits theaters next year.

EVERYONE TO STAR IN DUNE

HOLLYWOOD – Denis Villeneuve revealed today that everyone will star in his remake of the Science Fiction classic Dune.

With Timothee Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Sting and Charlotte Rampling already confirmed, Denis Villeneuve’s movie adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune is beginning to take shape. He spoke with us about his casting decision to recruit the population of the world to ‘swell the scene’.

The thing is we have in Dune the population of Arrakis, but also the home planet of the Artreides: Caladan and Giedi Prime, the planet of the Harkonnens. So we need actors to play the populations of those planets. And we decided quite early on we don’t want Dune to be a mass of CGI. We want it to be as close to real as possible. That’s the way people will engage in the story. My first argument on reading the book, my first thesis, was this isn’t really science fiction, so much as an alternative historical novel. Think about it. There are families and barons and all that. It’s more Game of Thrones than Star Wars.

 Although the population of the world will be expected to get up very early in the morning, they will be pain in spice. And the SPICE MUST FLOW.

Dune starts filming on Tuesday.

COUNTDOWN TO OSCARS 2019 BEGINS

HOLLYWOOD – The countdown to the 91st Academy Awards (also known popularly as the Oscars) begins.

Sunday sees Jimmy Kimmel host the 90th Academy Awards but here at the Studio Exec we’re already looking forward to the next edition.

We spoke with resident Oscar expert Oscar Isaac:

The 91st edition of the Academy Awards look like being the most competitive ever. A real make or break year. Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks are joined in the acting categories by Sting and Kevin James in what has turned out to be a genuinely surprising year. The new Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood might see the famed director get his hands on a Best Picture for the first time. Though some claim that his killing of Leonardo di Caprio might go against him.

He killed di Caprio?

To be fair, Quentin didn’t force him to fly that helicopter in Mexico.

Jesus.

Woody Allen’s collaboration with Roman Polanski – Thank God for Little Girls – was the surprise entrant in the Foreign Language category, his first French language film where it’ll compete with Michael Haneke’s Eine Kliene Nacht Musik – which translates as You Are All a Bunch of Shitting Bastards. As for Best Picture, Guillermo del Toro must certainly be in the running with his Splash reboot and George Lucas for Button Pants. There’s also bound to be the now traditional mix up at the end. Hashtag hilarious.

Thanks Oscar.

That’s fine Exec.

The Oscars are on Sunday.

STAR WARS EPISODE 9: THE LAST JEDI – SPOILER REVIEW

HOLLYWOOD – Star Wars Episode 8 The Last Jedi hits screens worldwide this week.

Rian Johnson’s Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi arrives in cinemas but does it blow up the Death Star or just explode on the surface. Here are FIVE takeaways, but be warned these are SPOILERS.

1 The first hour is a real drag. Star Wars was originally inspired by the Flash Gordon Saturday morning serials and here the Star Wars franchise has become like that. Familiar characters go off and do different things. But none of this quite amounts to the status of story. Time and space are manipulated in an offhand way. Travelling across the galaxy with a deadline counted in hours feels wrong. It minimizes the scale we’ve come to expect. And some of the stories feel like TV episode filler. Especially with Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) Go to the thing and get the thing that’ll do the other thing while jeopardy happens that’ll take x hours. As much as Force Awakens lacked originality, it was exhilarating. This felt middle-act-humdrum.

2  In a telling scene, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) tosses the light saber over his shoulder, mirroring the film’s own dismissive attitude to many elements set up by JJ Abrams’ first instalment. Luke for one was this big reveal in the first of the new films. Here, he spends a long part of the movie refusing ‘the call to adventure’, but it never calls again. Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke’s relationship doesn’t deepen. The offing of Snoke was a great scene, but again had a Game of Thrones abruptness. It seemed more intent on wrong-footing the audience than anything else.

3  Leia (Carrie Fisher) flying. I get that Leia is essentially a Jedi, strong in the force. But the moment she flew her character – and perhaps the series – hid in the fridge. I feel toward Star Wars now how I felt toward the Harry Potter films. I’ll go and see them and enjoy them. But I’m not invested. All the characters have ‘moments’, but I’ve lost sight of any real arc.

4 The humor. Force Awakens was funny – in a smart TV show way. The Last Jedi is more funny in a Jar Jar way. Cute/disgusting aliens, some comedy gurning – Finn has become a particular adherent, but Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac run him a joint second. And then the overplayed winking actually detracts from the movie. When Luke flicks dirt from his robe emerging from the lethal bombardment, I felt that was Mark Hamill doing that; not Luke. I could hear the conversation: ‘Hey what if I wink at C3PO?’ Luke’s character was always the most sincere, the most driven. When did he become this jokey semi-serious granddad?

5 Luke’s death. This was the most baffling moment of the film. Why make the twist that Luke is not actually there – using his force to project himself into the minds of the others – to then make the consequences exactly the same as him being there. I loved the moment that he revealed himself to Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. It was epic. My highlight of the movie. It seemed to go in a really different direction. No, we’re not going to have the obligatory death.

5 b. Not every film has to have the same emotional beat – and this goes with the action too. We don’t always have to have the clock ticking while two sets of characters have to accomplish two different tasks. The algebra is becoming nakedly predictable. This is movie magic by algorithm.

To be clear, I quite enjoyed the film. Especially the last hour. But Star Wars ought to be great and for me this felt like the beginning of the end of my fascination with the series.

FIRST LOOK AT WILL FERRELL AND OSCAR ISAACS IN CHiPs REMAKE

HOLLYWOOD – The remake of popular Eighties TV show CHiPs, which stars Oscar Isaac and Will Ferrell, got its first official image today.

Running from 1977 to 1983, Chips was a popular TV show created by Rick Rosner and following the lives of two California Highway Patrolmen, Jon Baker (Larry Wilcox) and as macho, rambunctious Officer Frank Llewellyn “Ponch” Poncherello (Erik Estrada). The remake will be directed by Adam McKay and will star Oscar Isaac as Ponch and Will Ferrell as Jon Baker. Isaac spoke EXCLUSIVELY to the Studio Exec:

We’ve been working on this film for about three years, but something always came up. Star Wars took a lot of time and Will was learning Spanish for some reason. Adam was also distracted by The Big Short. However, now the stars have all aligned and we began shooting early in January. We were initially looking at this being something quite light. Some comedy, some action. But Will said that he feels like he is getting into something of a rut these days with too many bromances and comedies and he wanted to go darker. He also is a total True Detective freak and so I think that led to a real change in focus with the script. This is going to be Will Ferrell like you’ve never seen him before.

How did you prepare for the role?

We drove around a lot with the real guys who do the work for reals. I can tell you, it is a hard job but boy those motorcycles are a lot of fun.

How is it to work with Will Ferrell?

I learn a lot from every actor I work with but with Will, it’s strange. He’s a very disturbed man. He really wants to do serious work but they keep pushing him into this comedy stuff that he really doesn’t want to do anymore. CHiPs is going to change all of that.

Can you give us an example?

I don’t want to spoil anything, obviously, but Ponch and Jon are investigating the Crips and Jon has to go undercover and part of his initiation ceremony involves murdering someone he loves. It was a challenging scene for Will to do but he pulled it off. He really pulled it off.

CHiPs will be released in 2017.

FREE HATS TO BE GIVEN AWAY WITH X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

HOLLYWOOD – Free hats are to be given away at cinemas showing X-Men: Apocalypse, Bryan Singer revealed today.

X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer revealed that everyone who goes to see his new film X-Men: Apocalypse will be given a free hat. Bryan Singer was speaking EXCLUSIVELY to the Studio Exec following the release of the trailer for the new installment which will star James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Sophie Turner and Michael Fassbender as Magneto!

It is really hard for us right now. The Avengers are really out there kicking our asses and then there’s Star Wars and all the spin offs from that to contend with.  There are all these gimmicks as well. IMAX, 3D, IMAX 3D, so I was thinking how can I make the X-Men relevant once more? How can I make it so people want to come and see our movie and not some other movie? And the answer came to me in a dream. Give away free hats.

With every ticket?

Yes, absolutely with every ticket. Once you get your ticket, you get the free hat. I’ve designed them personally. They’ll be top hats and they’ll have writing across them. One will say ‘I went to see the X-Men: Apocalypse and Loved It’ and the other will say ‘The X-Men Rock (Not As Much As The Avengers, But Still)’. The idea is that people will go and see our film and when they come out wearing their hats, it’ll be advertising for our movie. Isn’t that wonderful?

And these are top hats?

Yes.

Well, won’t they block the view? I mean if everyone gets a top hat and puts it on during the film, the people behind won’t be able to see.

The don’t have to… why would they…

You could have bowler hats.

We’ve already bought the top hats. We’ve already made them. Hundreds of thousands of top hats. Half of them saying ‘I went to see the X-Men: Apocalypse and Loved It’ and the other half saying ‘The X-Men Rock (Not As Much As The Avengers, But Still)’.

Didn’t that cost a lot of money?

Half our budget.

This is a really…

Shut up.

X-Men: Apocalypse will be released on May 26th, 2016.

SHOW ME A HERO – REVIEW

SHOW ME A HERO – REVIEW – The guy who did The Wire directed by the ex-scientologist who did Crash starring the guy who’s now flying x-wings and everyone says Yonkers every two minutes. What’s not to like?

‘Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy,’ said the expert American tragedian F. Scott Fitzgerald and David Simon, who has turned prime time television into something of novelistic richness, returns with a true story about affordable housing in Yonkers.  Oscar Isaac plays Nick Wasicsko, a young Democratic councilman picked by his party to run against the popular incumbent (James Belushi). Without much of a hope or a particular vision – he agrees with his opponent about most things – he spots his opportunity when the Major decides not to appeal an unpopular court decision to build social housing in Yonkers, providing homes for hundreds of poor and inevitably black residents. Nick becomes the youngest major in America but soon discovers that the appeal he ran on is a non-starter and now it falls to him  to work a way out of the deadlock and face down the mobs of citizens who see him as a political opportunist and traitor.

Simon and co-writer Bill Zorzi, adapting Lisa Belkin’s book, spread the story around so we see the lives of the real people effected by the housing decision. This included a woman from the Dominican Republic who finds life so hard in the US she considers moving her family back to the DR; an old black lady who is going blind; young pregnant women with their men in various states of incarceration and a concerned resident who wants to protect her neighborhood without admitting to the racism of the movement of which she is a vocal member. As with Treme and The Wire, the central story is simply the inciting incident to discover the rich complexity of American urban life which is Simon’s recurrent theme. He is genuinely interested in these lives and those who would have been background in, say a Tom Hanks film of the same story, are resolutely in the foreground. To compete with these stories, you need a good lead and Oscar Isaac once more shows himself to be one of the best actors working in America today. Following performances in Two Faces of January, A Dangerous Year, Ex Machina and Inside Llewyn Davis, his young politician is a brilliantly subtle piece of characterisation. At once a bright-eyed decent man, he is also full of inglorious vanity and a desperate need – which perhaps lies at the heart of many a politician – to be loved. An ex-cop who likes his booze and his Bruce Springsteen, his moral compass is always having to be reset against his ambition and his good humor and optimism is gradually being chipped away by the complex compromises and the public loathing that are heaped on him. In a wonderful brief moment of triumph, he breaks into one of the building sites just for the pleasure of sitting in a digger, like a child, and thinking ‘I did this’.

If television is truly in a golden age – and I fully believe it is – then one of the main architects has to be David Simon and it is heartening to see that he is being afforded the opportunity to make intensely felt, intelligent and witty drama.

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5 FACTS WE LEARNED FROM THE FORCE AWAKENS TRAILER

HOLLYWOOD – Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer debuted on the internet, yet what did it really tell us about the film due out on Christmas Day, 2015? A previous Force Awakens post gave some ideas but to be sure we sent our Padawan FACT team to FACT-touine to find out.

1. Folk singer and misanthrope Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) from the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis gets to fly an x-wing over a lake. As well as an exciting moments of derring-do, Davis will no doubt be offering a song on acoustic guitar, perhaps as a melancholic prelude to a massive battle sequence, à la Pippin in Return of the King.

2. Stormtroopers are going to fight on the beaches of Normandy. Whether they have broadened their admission policy to included people who are not Bobba Fett’s father, or is Attack the Block’s John Boyega doing a bit of garbage compactor style disguise? This we are yet to see, but knowing Abrams’ fondness for visual quotes (inspired by a love of the original and/or a lack of original ideas) my credits would be on the latter.

3. Andy Serkis/Benedict Cumberbatch/Adam Driver’s voice-over is the kind of gravel strewn larynx work that usually can be heard on commercials for bourbon or Monday night football. The intoning about darkness awakening and light too is all a bit silly and made me miss Yoda’s thrilling précis to the Phantom Menace trailer, which was – let’s not forget – an exciting trailer.

4. Bad Robot is not just JJ Abrams’ production company, but an ethos. If you hated flying CGI R2D2, you’re going to loathe SPIN-EE Bad Robot Spin.

5. Sith Lords are so bad ass that even the safety guard on their lightsabers can cut your fingers off. The Millennium Falcon loops the loop (bit of lens flare), Daisy Ridley tools around on a landspeeder turned sideways and Voldemort lurks North of the Wall. What more could we want?

For more Movie FACTS CLICK HERE!

ROBERT REDFORD PROBABLY WON’T WIN BEST ACTOR OSCAR

HOLLYWOOD – News coming in that Robert Redford will probably not win the Best Actor Oscar for his role as ‘Our Man’ in All Is Lost. Redford joins Oscar Isaac and Idris Elba in the WTF? corner.

The news of Robert Redford’s disappointment came hard on the heels of the revelation that Inside Llewyn Davis wasn’t particularly well directed and that there were at least nine, if not more, better films released in 2013. 
The Coen Brothers issued a joint statement earlier today: 

Our reaction to the news, after some time of painful reflection and introspection, is to go on a massive cocaine binge and we suggest Mr. Redford do the same. We know he’s in Utah now at the Sundance Film festival, so he shouldn’t have any trouble finding some snow. If you know what we mean.  

Fortunately science has proven that the Oscars are ‘a bunch of bullshit’ according to a study by Colombia University, though that might come as scant consolation to those who have failed to win nominations and are thereby unworthy to lick the boots of those who have. 

The Oscars will be broadcast on television.

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS ‘NOT A PORN MOVIE’

LONDON – The Coen Brothers‘ new film Inside Llewyn Davis ‘is not a porn movie’, insists star Oscar Isaac. 

Talking exclusively to the Studio Exec, Isaac was at pains to point out that – despite its racy title – the film, which will show at the London Film Festival before going on release in the Fall, was in fact a return to classical Coen territory. 

It’s actually set in the world of folk music in New York in the early sixties. I can’t say much more because I don’t want to spoil the surprise. But I can say that it is definitely not a porn movie. I don’t understand where on earth you got that notion from.

So you’re claiming it’s more erotica? 

No, it’s not erotica. It’s really not that concerned with … sex. It isn’t that kind of film.

How did you feel about having to perform full frontal nudity with Carey Mulligan?

 Well, I didn’t. Our characters have had a relationship but … Look let’s be absolutely clear, Inside Llewyn Davis is not a skin flick. It ain’t a porn movie. And that’s that. You understand? Finally?

Okay, so what does the title mean? 

Oh wait. Yeah. Now I think about it in the original cut there was this scene. It’s quite funny that I should have forgotten about it, but now it comes to mind. Anyway. Er, my character really needs money and he has to do some stuff. And you know how in Barton Fink the camera goes down the plughole and into the pipes? Well … But Ethan and Joel decide that tonally it was all wrong for the movie and so they got rid of it. So now, I’m beginning to see where the confusion comes from.

Inside Llewyn Davis will be released Fall, 2013.