'Side Effects' Poster

Excellent. Nice. Wow. Love the PSA font. (Sorry for going on and on).

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Starts Okay, Gets Better, Ends Great

So. The trailer for 'Side Effects'. I'm watching this thinking it's so 80s, almost made-for-TV. That title... Come on, that's like a paperback you buy at the airport. You know -- with garish cover art that includes a syringe with a drop hanging off its tip and figures in silhouette running away in the background. That kind of novel. A 'pharmaceutical thriller'? Not so much any more. Been there, done that.

What the hell. I click start anyway and, as the trailer rolls it's looking pretty bad. But, it gets better. Something is there among all that soap-opera build up.

And, yeah, I didn't know it was a Soderbergh property until the end (I'm a little embarrassed to admit), when I saw his name, along with writer Scott Burns, and it came as a relief. Suddenly, the pieces fall into place. Oooh, it's a Soooderbeerrgh movie. It's a throw-back genre, sure, but it's Soderbergh, and he's surely delivered a finely wrought rendition (though you don't get much sense of camera/editing style/technique) of Burns' screenplay and the result will probably be very good. Why else shoot dice on this? It has to be, good that is.

And, really, these guys could do anything, any genre, any type of plot, and make it work, make it entertaining and intellectually invigorating. They've proven it before.

And, as far as performances go, Jude Law gives notice. Bit after bit this guy nails it to the wall. He's so good. He's gone from being a supporting actor -- delivering solid craft and all that, but always in the shadow of a 'star', always second fiddle -- to, these days, a leading man whose involvement means the story will get under your skin and, moment to moment, scenes will ring true, characters will seem like people you might know or, at least, have heard about in real life, maybe in a story you read in the paper or overheard at a party or bar.

It's like the transformation of Matthew McConaughey's career, sort of. The two actors aren't alike, yes, don't play the same kind of roles, I know, but both went from being on the sideline in one respect or another to being pure money, go-to. Just having one of them in your movie gives it weight, makes average people want to see it and movie buffs need to see it, whereas a few years ago it meant the average person might give it a pass and movie buffs might give it a spin as a rental, maybe, sometime.

And, that's what I was thinking, watching this trailer, at the beginning. I was thinking I might rent this for Law's performance (some time down the road). I was thinking he was a cut above and I had to see him despite the movie being what it was, or what I thought it was. No hurry, though.

Then, there's hints of quality. Crumbs, tidbits, of a story you can savor, a plot with a spine, more performances that sizzle and, by the midpoint, I'm wondering how this can look so good, how it can seem so interesting when I'm sure I've seen this stuff, this same movie, over and over in years past, mostly late night on television. Then, at the end, I see Soderbergh's and Burns' names and I can't wait to see the movie. At the theater, thank you very much. By the end, I'm not wondering how a B plot could get made these days, I'm wondering what kind of characters actors like Law, Rooney Mara, and Catherine Zeta-Jones signed on to create, what kind of story Burns wrote, and how well actors like Vinessa Shaw and Channing Tatum hold their own in this environment.

So, yeah, I thought it was boilerplate but I changed my mind. The trailer changed my mind.





















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Poster for '360'

Quite a pedigree here. With Anthony Hopkins, Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Ben Foster, and Maria Flor. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, City of God) and written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon).

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Stunning Fantastic Trailer for Steven Soderbergh's 'Contagion'

Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow look great. With a knock-out cast: Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Lawrence Fishburne.

Visuals border on stupefying. Just plain wow.

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Trailer for 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'

Perhaps a tad less garish and cheeky than the first movie, yet even more stylized (if that's possible). Title is darker, imagery is darker. There's the inkling of depth of character. Production value to burn. Hoping Noomi Rapace brings some weight to this franchise.

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Jude Law On Sleuth

With Charlie Rose

Capturing Time On Film

Wong Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love) is well-known for his propensity for making movies about The Moment. NYT covers the making of Kar-wai's new film "My Blueberry Nights" with Jude Law, Norah Jones, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, and David Strathairn.

Of the scene that has become known as 'The Kiss', NYT reports:

On a SoHo film set last August, Jude Law and Norah Jones were getting intimate. Repeatedly intimate. To be precise, they had kissed upwards of 150 times in the past three days.

The occasion for this outbreak of passion was "My Blueberry Nights," the first English-language film by Wong Kar-wai, the maverick Hong Kong director turned avatar of cosmopolitan cool. This particular night was stifling as the crew spilled out of Palacinka, a small cafe on Grand Street that was the principal New York location, preparing for yet another take of the scene known as "the Kiss."

It's closing time, and Ms. Jones, the only remaining customer, is slumped on the counter, her eyes shut. A smudge of cream rests on her upper lip, the telltale sign of a dessert binge. Mr. Law, cleaning up behind the bar, gazes at her, slowly leans in and steals a lingering kiss. When he surfaces, the cream on her lip is gone.

On working with a director so obsessed with a single scene.

"I've never worked with someone who's put so much emphasis on a single moment," Mr. Law said between takes one night. "It's extraordinary how he'll take a moment and replay it and slice it up."

Kar-wai works in an improvisational way -- often starting production without a completed script. Of working in this manner Law says:

"I wish we had endless time and endless money," Mr. Law said. "It's not often you get to be part of something like this -- a living story that's still being decided."

On completing "My Blueberry Nights" Kar-wai says:

Over tea shortly before he left New York, Mr. Wong said he was exhausted from the grueling shoot. But far from being fazed by the sense of incompletion, he seemed invigorated: the door remained open, no alternatives had been lost, the story was still alive.

And how might "My Blueberry Nights" end? "I think there will be a second kiss," he said. "But I don't know where."

Complete story at NYT