A while back Screenhead reported that one of Kiera Knightley’s upcoming movies (and one of the few that is not a period drama) is the crime thriller London Boulevard, staring opposite Colin Farrell. The story, which is said to transpose the noir style of flicks like Sunset Boulevard (hence the title) and gumshoe tales onto a contemporary London setting, involves a criminal’s attempts to break free from his nasty past while being entangled in the life of a seductive actress.
And now the cast has added three heavyweigths of British acting. Ray Winstone (who has excelled in films such as The Proposition and Sexy Beast) will appear as a crime boss, Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies) as Farrell’s sister, and the very underrated David Thewlis (Naked, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and partner of Friel) as Knightley’s business manager. All contribute to a very exciting ensemble. The film was adapted by and is being directed by William Monahan, writer of Kingdom of Heaven and The Departed. It will be his directorial debut.
Keira Knightley is to star in the sci-fi thriller Never Let Me Go for Fox Searchlight, which I would love to see her do as a nice change in genre.
Mark Romanek is set to direct the movie, which is a cloning-themed story, that also stars Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan.
Shooting starts in April in London and Norfolk, England.
According to Variety, the story focuses on a trio of friends who grew up in a boarding school with no contact or knowledge of the outside world until they discover they are clones grown for the sole purpose of organ donation.
The Duchess trailer clearly allows us to know that this woman has set her own downfall; but just how far down she goes is the question. One movie web site referred to similarities with the Late Princess Diana. That’s an interesting contrast. The movie opens September 19th.
Sometimes its feels as if the world of cinema has gone crazy with biopics. It’s probably the one connecting factor throughout the various nations- that a film about a famous person is seen to be a seller, yet it’s usually an incredibly dull affair that boasts one or two noteworthy performances, from Night and Day to La Mome. Another film to add to the list of mediocre biopics is The Edge of Love, a story that centres around the debauchery of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
The film follows the viewpoint of Vera Phillips, Dylan Thomas’s childhood friend and supposedly first love. Working as a singer in London during The Blitz, she comes across Thomas in a bar, who is of course drunk and attempting to wrangle booze money out of friends and family. Their potential romance is marred by the arrival of Thomas’s wife, the borderline nutcase Caitlin, Thomas’s match in promiscuity and alcohol consumption. Vera ends up living with the couple, befriending the normally catty Caitlin. Soon, Vera gets involved with the possessive Killock, who gets shipped off to the War, only to return to a pregnant Vera, and suspicions of her infidelity.
If there’s one surprise in this film, its Keira Knightley’s performance. Many are still dubious about her acting performances. While many saw her role in Atonement as a pouting object, she was probably the best part of the film. And while her “Lizzie” in Pride and Prejudice was slightly off the mark, she deserved her Oscar nomination. In this film, not only is her Welsh accent convincing, but she carries a kind of rural sultriness that makes her character more watchable than it could have been. Read the rest of this entry »
A while back Screenhead reported that one of Kiera Knightley’s upcoming movies (and one of the few that is not a period drama) is the crime thriller London Boulevard, staring opposite Colin Farrell. The story, which is said to transpose the noir style of flicks like Sunset Boulevard (hence the title) and gumshoe tales onto a contemporary London setting, involves a criminal’s attempts to break free from his nasty past while being entangled in the life of a seductive actress.
