Today while was away doing my other gig, a bunch of first look images showed up online thanks to Steve of Collider who visited the recent AFM ’09. Images from upcoming movies: THE AMERICAN, THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH, GREENBERG, SOMEWHERE, TRUE LEGEND (Watch the trailer). Check ‘em all out pus the synopsis after this jump…
THE AMERICAN, directed by Anton Corbijn, starring George Clooney
Jack (George Clooney) is an artful assassin with a lengthy track record, constantly on the move and always watching his back. When an assignment goes wrong and a lover ends up dead, he vows that the next job will be his last. This final obligation takes him to a picturesque town nestled amongst lush Italian hills, its historical piazzas bursting with life. But to Jack, every location is a trap and every person a potential threat. Still, he surprises himself, enjoying confessional conversations over Armagnac with an insightful priest and slipping into an affair with a local beauty. But by letting his guard down, Jack may be tempting fate. A dangerous shadow-dweller shows every sign of closing in, and the mysterious woman who has hired him may not be all that she seems. As an increasingly wary Jack contemplates life, love and death in Italy, the film escalates into a climactic showdown through the cobbled maze of age-old alleyways. This sexy, suspenseful and intricate story blends intrigue and passionate romance within a searing morality tale to finally reveal the heart of this deeply private man.
THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH, directed by Kevin Macdonald, starring Channing Tatum
Newly arrived in Britannia on his first command, young Centurion Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) heroically defends his ford against a massive Celtic attack but is so badly wounded that he is discharged from the army. Angry and bitter that his army career is over, Marcus chooses to risk his life on a seemingly impossible journey into the unconquered north to find the Eagle of the Ninth, the legendary golden standard lost fifteen years earlier when his father marched the Ninth Legion into the wilds of Scotland and never came back. As a companion, he takes his slave Esca (Jamie Bell), a Celt whose life he saved in a gladiatorial contest but who hates all things Roman. Their journey together into the wild north forgers the beginnings of a precarious relationship between them. But when they are captured by the Seal People, the most feared of all the Celtic tribes and the guardians of the lost Eagle, Esca claims that he is the master and Marcus his Roman slave – and Marcus has no choice but to entrust himself into the Celt’s hands. Just as Marcus fears Esca’s loyalty is lost and he is to remain a slave for life, the Celt proves true to his friend. Together they manage to retrieve the Eagle from an island temple and, keeping one step ahead of their pursuers in a thrilling chase to the safety of the border, they take a stand in a final, unexpected battle that reveals the secret of the Ninth.
GREENBERG, directed by Noah Baumbach, starring Ben Stiller
Meet Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller): a dysfunctional 40-year-old at a crossroads in his life. Roger wants to “do nothing” for a while, so he agrees to housesit for his younger and more successful brother, giving him a free place to stay in L.A. While in town, he tries to reconnect with his old friends and band mates but times have changed, and old friends aren’t necessarily still best friends. Greenberg starts spending time with his brother’s personal assistant Florence (Great Gerwig), an aspiring singer and herself something of a lost soul too. During a series of embarrassingly awkward romantic encounters, we sense that perhaps even someone as irascible as Greenberg may have found somebody who is prepared to appreciate him for himself – if he would only stop critiquing Florence’s techniques in bed. Over the course of several weeks, we watch an uncertain and wonderfully vulnerable courtship play out, and learn how funny, and terribly unpredictable, love in the modern world can be.
SOMEWHERE directed by Sofia Coppola
Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is a bad-boy A-List actor stumbling through a life of excess while living at Hollywood’s legendary Chateau Marmont Hotel. His days are a haze of drinks, girls, fast cars and fawning fans. Cocooned in this celebrity-induced artificial world, Johnny has lost all sense of his true self. Until, that is, his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) unexpectedly shows up and unwittingly begins to anchor him. Johnny’s fragile connection to real life slowly revives in her presence. So when the time comes fro Cleo to leave, his sense of loss is palpable, but the gift of hope she has also brought him leads to a beautiful, poetic denouement imbued with all of Coppola’s remarkable powers to conjure mood and atmosphere.
TRUE LEGEND directed by Yuen Woo Ping
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, war hero Su Can leads a spectacularly daring raid on enemy forces before retiring home from his military life to his beloved wife and their newborn son. Six years later, his vengeful step-brother Yuang returns from war unrecognizably consumed by Dark Martial Arts and armed with his Five Venom Fist, which he wields to severely injure Su as payback for a long and dark family history. Su and his wife barely escape with their lives, but their son is now held captive by an increasingly psychotic Yuang. Over many long and difficult months, Su recovers from his injuries and once again hones his craft with the help of a mysterious Bearded Man and his apprentice, Lord Wushu, a Golden Monk of unimaginable martial arts virtuosity. But even with this training, Su is unable to save his wife’s life when she single-handedly stakes out to find their son. Utterly broken by grief, Su soon wanders the streets as a drunken beggar with no will to live. It is only when his son is once again threatened, this time by imperial Westerners out to shame the Chinese people, that an inebriated Su summons all his fighting skills to save the day and unwittingly forges a new style of martial arts forever known as The Drunken Fist!
