A First Glimpse of Villeneuve's 'Arrival'

Chris here with a first look at one of the fall's big Oscar question marks. Last year, Denis Villeneuve's Sicario did quite well by Oscar standards if you consider its punishing bleakness and divisiveness even if it missed the major races. This year he's returning with the sci-fi Arrival, and we've been patiently waiting to see if this will raise his Oscar cache.

To go with the building buzz, here are our first looks...

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Halt & Blade Runner

Jason from MNPP here with a quite happy bit of new news - we've been a little on the wary side of the Blade Runner sequel. Even as excellent stuff was announced - Harrison Ford returning is excellent stuff! And we're probably bigger fans of director Denis Villeneuve as of this moment in time than we are of Ridley Scott as of this moment in time (that's our way of saying if we were talking about "Ridley Scott as of the 1980s" it would be a different story). These are all net positives! 

And yet we're wary. We're talking about Blade Runner here! The film that basically built the entire aesthetic of cinematic dystopia on its slick neon-in-the-rain shoulders. You kind of can't look at any movie set in the future that was made in the past 34 years and not see its influence.

Well today we're a smidge less wary, and we might actually be on our way to excited, because the film's just cast one of our very favorite actresses - Mackenzie Davis from Halt and Catch Fire (which is so underrated it pains my insides) as well as the terrific upcoming thriller Always Shine, which I reviewed from the Tribeca Film Festival (and which she won Best Actress at that same festival for). No word on who she's playing (naturally they're keeping everything tight to the vest) but I get a little giddy picturing her done up a la Daryl Hannah's Pris, I have to say.

Villeneuve & Gyllenhaal: From Enemy to muse

Cinematic magic often occurs when an actor and director find their careers entwined and they're able to bring out the best in each other. Film history has been littered with Directors and their muses; Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, John Ford and John Wayne, Hitchcock had many, Woody Allen had his, too. Now it seems Denis Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal are joining those ranks with their recently announced third collaboration The Son, based on the Jo Nesbo book. The moody thriller will follow Gyllenhaal as a heroin addicted prisoner who escapes to learn the truth about his father's suicide. Hopefully this also means we'll have another career best performance from Gyllenhaal. Following Nightcrawler, Zodiac, and both the Villeneuve pictures (Enemy, Prisoners), crime thrillers seem to fit Gyllenhaal like a glove...

While Prisoners was more palatable to audiences, Enemy felt far more like the unique stamp of an auteur and muse project. This brain bender offers the only thing better than Jake Gyllenhaal starring in a movie: two Jake Gyllenhaals starring in a movie. The puzzle of a man meeting his exact double is gripping, thought provoking, and one of the most underappreciated films of the last few years. The curious spider motif that recurrs throughout Enemy is an appropriate metaphor for the delicate web that Villeneuve and Gyllenhaal spin together. 

We'll have to wait awhile for The Son, though, as both men have very full slates with Villeneuve working on the Blade Runner sequel and finishing the Amy Adams sci-fi drama Story of Your Life. Gyllenhaal next stars in Nocturnal Animals from Tom Ford and he obviously has a taste for alternative acclaimed directors, since he's got roles in new Antoine Fuqua, David Gordon Green, and Joon-ho Bong projects as well. Gyllenhaalics rejoice.

Are you excited about this latest auteur & muse team? 

April Showers: Sicario

In April Showers, Team TFE looks at our favorite waterlogged moments in the movies. Here's Chris on Sicario (2015).

Sicario was one of last year's most underappreciated and perhaps misread films. Audience responses ranged from breathless praise (yours truly is guilty) to passive disregard to outright frustration. However, it's three Oscar nominations (Cinematography, Original Score, Sound Editing) are inarguables of the film's immaculate (if punishing) craft.

One of the major qualms against the film is its central characterization in Kate Macer - a tightly wound and multilayered Emily Blunt at her very best. Plenty have complained that she's too passive and changes little - but that ignores the fact that she's a woman who stands her ground and fights for her beliefs despite being up against forces stronger and more unshakable than her solitary point of view. She's swimming upstream and being pulled under fast...

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Sicario's Hell in Harmony

Chris here. Available this week on DVD/Blu-ray is Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, a controlled descent into the cartel battles being waged between the Mexican and American borders. Like the ongoing war on drugs, Villeneuve's film presents a complex landscape of violence wherein rulebooks have been forsaken - and on both sides. It's a masterful piece of filmmaking (recently nominated by the PGA, ADG, and WGA), and Villeneuve has assembled an intimidating group of craftspeople working harmoniously to create a living hell.

Front and center is Emily Blunt's idealistic and by-the-book agent Kate Macer, straining composure and grasping for opportunity while in over her head. Blunt is ferociously present and flummoxed, giving as much subtlety and nuance as she has in her broader roles like The Devil Wears Prada. She's so believably rattled that you're reaching for fistfuls of cigarettes along with her. It's a performance that deserves to be right in the thick of the Best Actress conversation, even in such a deep field as this. While many have claimed her to be far too passive, her lack of control is just another element of Villeneuve's all-pervasive synthesis.

more after the jump...

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