#1$ News : The Movie For Cinderella (2015) Enjoy gan!!

On paper, Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella sounds like Disney’s laziest live-action fairy tale adaptation yet. Unlike Maleficent or Oz the Great and Powerful, it doesn’t claim to reveal some untold story; it doesn’t even offer a new ending, like Alice in Wonderland did. It’s simply a new telling of the same old story.
But that, it turns out, is exactly why it succeeds. By reminding us why we love this story so much in the first place, Disney manages to make the old feel fresh again. 

Going Back to Basics

Rather than try and upend our expectations, Cinderella doubles down on the story’s most potent elements: its good-hearted heroine and its wish-fulfillment romance. Where Branagh and screenwriter Chris Weitz embellish on the classic fable, they do so to strengthen that foundation.
So Cinderella (Lily James) gets a bit of backstory that establishes her goodness as a choice, rather than as an innate and immutable trait. In this telling, she embraces her dying mother’s advice to “have courage and be kind” as a sort of personal motto, and clings to her childhood home for sentimental reasons.
Cinderella’s prince, here named Kit (Richard Madden), is also further fleshed out. Instead of the handsome cipher of Disney’s 1951 Cinderella, he’s an earnest young man who lives by the same motto Cinderella does. Their shared values make Cinderella and Kit a natural fit, which in turn makes their whirlwind courtship feel more fulfilling.

Sincerity Can Be Charming

In addition to playing up the story’s essential appeal, Cinderella embraces its status as a fairy tale, in the classic, midcentury-Disney-movie sense. There are no attempts to make Cinderella “grittier” or “more realistic,” the humor is more goofy than snarky, and there’s not a trace of cynicism or condescension to be found.
Once upon a time, such sincerity might not have been noteworthy, but in a movie landscape riddled with tortured superheroes and grimy fantasies, it feels downright revelatory. Interestingly, it doesn’t turn Cinderella into a kids-only affair, but a true all-ages one. Without the usual embarrassed acknowledgements that this is kid stuff, I was able to enjoy Cinderella the way I might have as a kid — with awe and wonder.


Cast: Cate Blanchett, Lily James, Richard Madden, Helena Bonham Carter, Holliday Grainger, Sophie McShera

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Rating: PG

Running Time: 105 min.

Synopsis: Kenneth Branagh directs Disney's 2015, live-action take on the classic fairy tale Cinderella, which stars Lily James as the put-upon young women forced to endure a life of labor at the hands of her stepmother (Cate Blanchett) after her father dies unexpectedly. Forced to do every menial chore imaginable, Ella maintains her good spirits and eventually strikes up a friendship with a stranger in the woods who turns out to be the prince. When the royal court holds a gala ball, Cinderella wants nothing more to attend, and although her stepmother won't allow it, she gets help from a surprising source

Movie News : Ex Machina Is An Early Frontrunner To Be 2015's Best Film

There are approximately 52 weekends between the start of January and the end of December, and each of those typically not only feature multiple wide-released movies, but also a number of limited releases as well. It now being mid-March, this means that there are still hundreds of films left to be seen in the next nine and a half months. That being said, I’m confident that by the time December 31st rolls around, Ex Machina - which just had its North American premiere at SXSW – will still be considered one of the best movies of the year, potentially topping the list.

The directorial debut of 28 Days Later and Sunshine screenwriter Alex Garland, the story begins as a young programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is selected as the winner of a lottery at his company, and his reward is that he gets to fly out and visit the extremely exclusive research facility belonging to his boss, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), an eccentric, billionaire genius. It is only once our protagonist arrives at the remote location, however, that he discovers the reason behind his summoning: Nathan has created the world’s first ever artificial intelligence – an android named Ava (Alicia Vikander) – and he wants Caleb to perform a Turing Test that will determine the full extent of the A.I.’s capability.

Over the course of a week, Caleb sits down with his subject through multiple sessions, asking questions to determine thought process, emotions, intelligence, and more before reporting back to Nathan – but it is here where Ex Machina’s real brilliance is revealed: the film is both about and is a test. Over the course of the narrative, it becomes clear that there are some very important truths that are being kept hidden, and through this fact Garland sets up a brilliant mystery that is utterly captivating at every turn. A fascinating dynamic is established between Caleb, Nathan and Ava, forcing the audience to untangle what may or may not be a web of deceit and dishonestly, and ultimately question what is real and what is just misdirection. It’s a mind-fuck of the highest order – sold by three perfect performances – and it’s an utter thrill to get lost in the puzzle.

Of course, Alex Garland has shown us time and time again that he is one of the most gifted sci-fi screenwriters working today, but Ex Machina also displays that the filmmaker has an exciting eye as a visual artist, as the movie is as beautiful as it is captivating. Inside the walls of the highly secure research facility, the director does a stunning job matching theme to aesthetic, making constant use of mirrors - both representing Ava’s existence as a reflection of humanity, and the distortion of realty that can be found at odd angles. There’s also a wonderful application CGI – primarily in Ava’s design – as its more subtle usage both lends a beauty to the advanced technology, while also maintaining a sense of grounded reality – which is only driven home further when we see Caleb and Nathan travel outside the facility into the breathtakingly gorgeous wilderness that surrounds the remote location.

With a wide release date set for just a few weeks from now on April 10th, it won’t be long before mass audiences will be given the opportunity to see Ex Machina for themselves, and it’s an opportunity of which any cinefile would be foolish not to take advantage. It’s a remarkable piece of mesmerizing work, and a film that should be buzzed about for months and months to come.

Amazing : Insidious, Sinister Are Building A Marvel-Style Shared Horror Universe

Ever since The Avengers became an incredible global phenomenon, studios have been trying to create their own versions of the Marvel Studios system and create their own united franchises. It’s become particularly popular in the comic book movie world, but has also expanded beyond that genre, with projects like King Arthur, Robin Hood and Universal Monsters giving the new method a spin. Now it seems that another horse has entered this race, as the horror-heavy Blumhouse Productions has been confirmed to be in the midst of creating its very own shared universe.

With the new movie Unfriended screening at SXSW this weekend, I had the chance to sit down one-on-one with Executive Producer/Blumhouse founder Jason Blum, and it was during our conversation that he noted that his company is in the midst of creating links between some of its biggest franchises. Asked if the shared universe model was something that he was potentially interested in doing, Blum told me,

    Be like Marvel, you mean? Yeah! I want to do that. We’ve been putting Easter Eggs in movies in different things. There’s some in Insidious 3. There’s some in Sinister 2. So yeah, we’ve been doing that. I would like to do more of that.


Both the first two Insidious movies and director Scott Derrickson’s 2012 film Sinister rank as some of the most successful franchises that Blumhouse has been able to produce so far, and it appears that their individual upcoming sequels - Insidious Chapter 3 coming out on June 5th and Sinister 2 arriving August 21st – will be at the very least making some strides to show that they may exist in a shared world. Of course, it’s worth mentioning that the studio is still in the process of putting together a bigger picture. As Blum explained,

    We’re not close to an Avengers, but I do like the idea of having the worlds collide in the different franchises we work on. That’s a really cool idea… I want to continue to do that.


Insidious Chapter 3 and Sinister 2 could definitely be a start, but those are far from the only franchises that Blumhouse Productions has under its control. The company became famous on the back of the Paranormal Activity franchise, though it’s key to note those movies were made at Paramount Pictures, while both Insidious 3 and Sinister 2 are set up at Focus Features. Given that The Purge is set up at Universal Pictures – Focus Features’ parent company – that remains a possibility, though it would be interesting to see how that continuity could possibly fit with the other films.

Do you like the idea of a Blumhouse Productions shared horror universe being build up with Insidious and Sinister and potentially more movies? Hit the comments with your thoughts!