Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent, and takes college courses, rarely making it to class. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father’s global empire just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he’s truly gone.
Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can’t understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death.Going explicitly against his final wishes, she leaves everything she knows behind in search of her dad’s last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan. But her mission will not be an easy one; just reaching the island will be extremely treacherous. Suddenly, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Lara, who—against the odds and armed with only her sharp mind, blind faith and inherently stubborn spirit—must learn to push herself beyond her limits as she journeys into the unknown. If she survives this perilous adventure, it could be the making of her, earning her the name tomb raider.
Director ROAR UTHAUG (The Wave) says, “Being a longtime fan of the game, it’s important to me to honor the Lara Croft legacy and capture that spirit. It’s great to know that there’s such a passionate global fan base for Lara and her world, and our commitment to that will be evident in our movie. What’s different about this “Tomb Raider” movie is that it’s an origin story for the big screen, focusing not only on Lara’s strength and physical accomplishments but her humanity. We see Lara as a young woman, smart and capable but largely unfocused, and follow her on a dangerous journey that will push her to her limits in every sense, and allow her to hone the skills she needs to ultimately become who she was meant to be. As Lara Croft, Alicia Vikander is brilliant. She brings great depth to a complex role that is both physically and emotionally demanding. We hope this film will delight fans around the world and add another intriguing chapter to the Tomb Raider story.”
Producer GRAHAM KING (The Departed, Blood Diamond) adds, “I’m excited to be a part of this new Tomb Raider story, which introduces the origins of Lara Croft and delves into the humanity of this character. Alicia Vikander is a gifted actress that brings so much to this role. Our director, Roar Uthaug is extremely passionate and has an eye for scale as well as gritty realism. It’s been a wonderful experience shooting in various locations around South Africa and we hope that using these actual locations will give a grounded sense of reality. It’s our goal to make a film that will not only delight fans but enthrall a world-wide audience.”
Academy Award® winners Leonardo DiCaprio, Brie Larson, Mark Rylance and Alicia Vikander will present at the 89th Oscars, show producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd announced today. All return to the Oscars stage after winning last year in their respective acting categories. Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the Oscars will air live on Sunday, February 26, on the ABC Television Network.
DiCaprio won last year for Actor in a Leading Role for “The Revenant.” He was previously nominated for his performances in “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), for which he also received a Best Picture nomination, “Blood Diamond” (2006), “The Aviator” (2004) and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” (1993). His film credits also include “The Great Gatsby” (2013), “Django Unchained” (2012) and “J. Edgar” (2011).
Larson’s performance in “Room” earned her an Oscar for Actress in a Leading Role. She has also appeared in “Trainwreck” (2015) and “Short Term 12” (2013). Her upcoming films include “Captain Marvel,” “Kong: Skull Island,” “The Glass Castle” and “Unicorn Store.”
Rylance won for Actor in a Supporting Role for “Bridge of Spies.” His other film credits include “The BFG” (2016) and the upcoming features “Dunkirk” and “Ready Player One.” A prolific stage actor, he earned Tony Awards for his performances in “Twelfth Night,” “Jerusalem” and “Boeing-Boeing.”
Vikander won for Actress in a Supporting Role for “The Danish Girl.” Her recent film credits include “The Light between Oceans” (2016), “Jason Bourne” (2016), “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (2015) and “Ex Machina” (2015). Her upcoming films include “Euphoria,” “Submergence” and “Tomb Raider.”
The 89th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be broadcast live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m.
The lushly beautiful THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS is a three-hankie historic drama set on the coast of Western Australia. With heart-tugging performances by an attractive trio of Oscar nominees (with two winners), Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz, the film is an adaptation of M. I. Stedman’s 2012 bestseller of the same name. The tale set in a remote corner of the world, in the years after the devastation of World War I, which nearly wiped out a generation of young men in Europe and left those who survived scarred by this most brutal of wars.
Derek Cianfrance, whose previous films include BLUE VALENTINE and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, both wrote the script and directs, and it is hard to imagine a more perfect director for this moody historic tale of moral choice. The title refers to the story’s setting, a remote lighthouse in Western Australia, at the point where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. With its talented cast, evocative photography by Adam Arkapaw, and a moving score by Alexandre Desplat, the romantic stage is set.
Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender) is a shell-shocked veteran and a man with no living family, who seeks solitude and the solace that brings, by taking a job as a lighthouse keeper on remote, uninhabited Janus Rock. While waiting to take his new post, he unexpectedly meets a beautiful young woman, Isabel Graysmark (Vikander), the daughter of the couple he is boarding with,Violet and Bill
Graysmark (veteran Australian actors Jane Menelaus and Garry McDonald) in the tiny port town nearest to Janus Rock. Isabel has lost two brothers in the war, who she still mourns, so Tom’s war experience draws her attention. Her parents note that available young men have become scarce in their little village since the war, and handsome ones like Tom Sherbourne rarer still. Reserved Tom is overwhelmed by the attention of lively, inquisitive Isabel, who awakens unsought feelings, and he proceeds cautiously and slowly. Their shared love of language and poetry creates a link between them. After a few months of exchanging letters, the pair are wed, and return to begin married life alone on the wind-swept island.
On the island, the couple experience both joy and hardships. A fateful moment comes when a small boat washes ashore, containing a dead man and a crying baby girl.
This is a tale of secrets, deceit, and moral choices with heartbreaking consequences. The film starts well, building atmosphere, tensions and mood in glorious wind-swept locations, and crafting the love story between Isabel and Tom. From the start, the film is gorgeous to look at and creates at wonderful sense of the time period. But once the story’s central fateful decision is made, it is easy to guess what will happen next.
Derek Cianfrance is the perfect person to direct this brooding romantic tale. As Cianfrance’s previous films BLUE VALENTINE and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES amply demonstrated, he has a deft touch with romance and tragedy. That skill allows him to craft a searing drama with moral overtones here, using the wild beauty of the seaside location to help build grandeur into the film. But make no mistake – this is still a weeper but just one set in a grand, sweep-you-away setting with sterling acting.
The film’s strength is in Cianfrance’s skill building romantic mood, its moving performances and gorgeous visuals. The film’s flaw lies with the too-predictable melodramatic story. Once that certain fateful event occurs, what will follow is plainly clear. After the expected tragic dilemma unfolds, the films does take a turn and it becomes less clear what will ultimately happen. The end result is a satisfying moral lesson but not a very surprising one.
The story touches on timeless questions of right and wrong but also deals with the echos of the war, not just Tom’s shattered nerves but the lingering anti-German feeling. This aspect comes out in the story of Hannah, the character played by Rachel Weisz, the daughter of a wealthy couple who marries a German immigrant, and faces discrimination and heart-ache through that decision.
The starkly beautiful location is almost another character in this story, an isolated world at the edge of a stormy sea, where anything can seem possible. The film was shot on location in New Zealand and the island of Tasmania, with Cape Campbell lighthouse in New Zealand standing in for the one on fictitious Janus Rock. Cinematographer Arkapaw, who also shot the Australian crime thriller ANIMAL KINGDOM and the visually-striking MACBETH with Fassbender, fills the screen with lush views.
This strong cast certainly helps lift the film, too. Fassbender is well-known as a gifted actor but the film may help lesser-known Swedish actress Alicia Vikander gain wider audience recognition. Fassbender’s talent is on full display as a quiet, lonely man whose deep sense of right and wrong comes up against his passionate devotion to his wife. Vikander, who turned in striking performances in EX MACHINA and earlier in the Swedish historic drama A ROYAL AFFAIR, gets to more fully display her acting range playing the vivacious, impulsive Isabel, whose tragic experiences and frustrated longing drives her to desperate measures. Rachel Weisz, as usual, is wonderful as the complex Hannah, a woman also driven by longing, but also grief and anger.
Supporting roles are filled with talented actors as well. Australian actor Jack Thompson (BREAKER MORANT) plays old salt Ralph, the captain of the ferry that resupplies Janus Rock, who becomes Tom’s steadfast friend. Fellow Aussie Bryan Brown (also in BREAKER MORANT), plays Hannah’s stern wealthy father, Septimus Potts. Septimus cut his daughter off without a cent when she defies him to marry German immigrant Frank Roennfeldt (Leon Ford). Frank is a gentle soul who nonetheless faces the wrath of the town for his heritage during the war. Septimus remains a strong-willed man but softens a little in light of the events that unspool, a transition that Brown handles well.
This is not a drama for every taste, as the story’s inherent melodrama keeps it grounded in its romantic genre. Still, for those who enjoy a good cry, and especially one set against a gorgeous natural landscape in a romantic, historic period, THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS provides the sweeping, satisfying, heart-tugging goods.
RATING: 3 OUT OF 5 STARS
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS opens Friday, September 2
DreamWorks Pictures’ THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS is a heart-breaking drama about fate, love, moral dilemmas and the lengths to which one couple will go to see their dreams realized.
Starring Academy Award® nominee Michael Fassbender, Oscar® winner Alicia Vikander, Oscar and Golden Globe winner Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson, the film is written for the screen and directed by Derek Cianfrance based on the acclaimed novel by M.L. Stedman.
In the years following World War I, Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), a young veteran still numb from his years in combat, takes a job as lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a remote island off the coast of Western Australia. As the island’s sole inhabitant, he finds comfort in the monotony of the chores and the solitude of his surroundings. When he meets the daughter of the school’s headmaster, Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander), in the local town of Partageuse on the mainland, Tom is immediately captivated by her beauty, wit and passion, and they are soon married and living on the island. As their love flourishes, he begins to feel again, their happiness marred only by their inability to start a family, so when a rowboat with a dead man and infant girl mysteriously washes ashore, Isabel believes their prayers may have finally been answered. As a man of principle, Tom is torn between reporting the lost child and pleasing the woman he loves, and against his better judgment he agrees to let Isabel raise the child as their own, making a choice with devastating consequences.
DreamWorks Pictures’ THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS opens in U.S. theaters on September 2, 2016.
WAMG invites you to enter for the chance to win TWO (2) seats to the advance screening of THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS on August 30 at 7PM in the St. Louis area.
Answer the following:
At age 23, director Derek Cianfrance co-wrote, shot, directed and edited his first feature film which premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival to much acclaim. The film went on to screen at over 30 film festivals worldwide, winning several honors, including the Special Jury Prize for Bold Original Expression at the Florida Film Festival.
Name this film.
TO ENTER, ADD YOUR NAME, ANSWER AND EMAIL IN OUR COMMENTS SECTION BELOW.
OFFICIAL RULES:
1. YOU MUST BE IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA THE DAY OF THE SCREENING.
2. No purchase necessary. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house. The theater is not responsible for overbooking.
THE FILM IS RATED PG-13 for thematic material and some sexual content.
Matt Damon returns to his most iconic role in JASON BOURNE. Paul Greengrass, the director of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, once again joins Damon for the next chapter of Universal Pictures’ Bourne franchise, which finds the CIA’s most lethal former operative drawn out of the shadows.
For JASON BOURNE, Damon is joined by Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel and Tommy Lee Jones, while Julia Stiles reprises her role in the series. Frank Marshall again produces alongside Jeffrey Weiner for Captivate Entertainment, and Greengrass, Damon, Gregory Goodman and Ben Smith also produce. Based on characters created by Robert Ludlum, the film is written by Greengrass and Christopher Rouse.
JASON BOURNE opens in theaters everywhere on July 29.
WAMG invites you to enter for the chance to win TWO (2) seats to the advance screening of JASON BOURNEon July 26 at 7PM in the St. Louis area.
Answer the following:
What is the title of Robert Ludlum’s second novel where the plot has to do with a conspiracy called Omega?
TO ENTER, ADD YOUR NAME, ANSWER AND EMAIL IN OUR COMMENTS SECTION BELOW.
OFFICIAL RULES:
1. YOU MUST BE IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA THE DAY OF THE SCREENING.
2. No purchase necessary. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house. The theater is not responsible for overbooking.
The film is rated PG 13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language.
Michael Fassbender stars as Tom Sherbourne and Alicia Vikander as his wife Isabel in DreamWorks Pictures poignant drama THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, written and directed by Derek Cianfrance based on the acclaimed novel by M.L. Stedman.
DreamWorks Pictures’ THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS is a heart-breaking drama about fate, love, moral dilemmas and the lengths to which one couple will go to see their dreams realized.
The film opens in U.S. theaters on September 2, 2016.
Also starring Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson, watch the latest preview below.
In the years following World War I, Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), a young veteran still numb from his years in combat, takes a job as lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a remote island off the coast of Western Australia. As the island’s sole inhabitant, he finds comfort in the monotony of the chores and the solitude of his surroundings. When he meets the daughter of the school’s headmaster, Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander), in the local town of Partageuse on the mainland, Tom is immediately captivated by her beauty, wit and passion, and they are soon married and living on the island.
As their love flourishes, he begins to feel again, their happiness marred only by their inability to start a family, so when a rowboat with a dead man and infant girl mysteriously washes ashore, Isabel believes their prayers may have finally been answered. As a man of principle, Tom is torn between reporting the lost child and pleasing the woman he loves, and against his better judgment he agrees to let Isabel raise the child as their own, making a choice with devastating consequences.
The producers are Academy Award nominee David Heyman, p.g.a., and Jeffrey Clifford, p.g.a., with Tom Karnowski, Rosie Alison, Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King serving as executive producers.
Hitting theaters on July 29th is the upcoming film JASON BOURNE.
In this brand new featurette, Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass discuss the next chapter of Universal Pictures’ Bourne franchise.
Matt Damon returns to his most iconic role in JASON BOURNE. Paul Greengrass, the director of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, once again joins Damon, which finds the CIA’s most lethal former operative drawn out of the shadows.
For Jason Bourne, Damon is joined by Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel and Tommy Lee Jones, while Julia Stiles reprises her role in the series.
The first movie debuted to $27.1 million, followed by $52.5 million for The Bourne Supremacy and $69.3 million for The Bourne Ultimatum, and the totals increased each time as well. (Box Office Mojo)
Frank Marshall again produces alongside Jeffrey Weiner for Captivate Entertainment, and Greengrass, Damon, Gregory Goodman and Ben Smith also produce. Based on characters created by Robert Ludlum, the film is written by Greengrass and Christopher Rouse.
Check out the explosive new trailer for Universal Pictures’ must-see film of the summer, JASON BOURNE.
Matt Damon returns to his most iconic role in Jason Bourne.
Paul Greengrass, the director of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, once again joins Damon for the next chapter of Universal Pictures’ Bourne franchise, which finds the CIA’s most lethal former operative drawn out of the shadows.
For JASON BOURNE, Damon is joined by Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel and Tommy Lee Jones, while Julia Stiles reprises her role in the series. Frank Marshall again produces alongside Jeffrey Weiner for Captivate Entertainment, and Greengrass, Damon, Gregory Goodman and Ben Smith also produce. Based on characters created by Robert Ludlum, the film is written by Greengrass and Christopher Rouse.
Here’s your first look at JASON BOURNE starring Matt Damon.
The film opens in theaters on July 29th.
Matt Damon returns to his most iconic role in Jason Bourne. Paul Greengrass, the director of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, once again joins Damon for the next chapter of Universal Pictures’ Bourne franchise, which finds the CIA’s most lethal former operative drawn out of the shadows.
For JASON BOURNE, Damon is joined by Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel and Tommy Lee Jones, while Julia Stiles reprises her role in the series. Frank Marshall again produces alongside Jeffrey Weiner for Captivate Entertainment, and Greengrass, Damon, Gregory Goodman and Ben Smith also produce. Based on characters created by Robert Ludlum, the film is written by Greengrass and Christopher Rouse.
Playing in theaters now is director Tom Hooper’s THE DANISH GIRL. The film has been nominated for 5 Critics’ Choice Awards, 3 Golden Globe Awards, and 2 Screen Actors Guild Awards including Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.
In her review, Cate Marquis says the movie “is a visually beautiful film, with fine, moving performances and a little-known historical story, which will make it a winner for its story of transcendent love.”
Eddie Redmayne is one of the five nominees in the Best Actor category on the AWFJ‘s recently released nomination list for the 2015 EDA Awards.
Focus Features’ has launched a new initiative in tandem with the recent wide release of THE DANISH GIRL.
Inspired by the remarkable true story of Lili Elbe, they’re recognizing influential members and supporters in the LGBT community with the #CourageToBeYourself project. Rhys Harper, a transgender photographer, captured the various individuals in their chosen personal space – wherever they felt represented their true self.
Each photo is accompanied by their personal story of courage. The collection of their extraordinary experiences hopes to celebrate and inspire others to find the courage to be themselves. Focus will continue to highlight each profile in the coming weeks.
For more info on the #CourageToBeYourself initiative, see the album.
The remarkable love story inspired by the lives of Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener (portrayed by Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne [“The Theory of Everything”] and Alicia Vikander [“Ex Machina”]), directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech,” “Les Misérables”).
Lili and Gerda’s marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili’s groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.
