Poster: The Lovely Bones

DreamWorks just released the first poster for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. We posted the trailer way back in August, but this one is aiming squarely for award season, and as with most of Jackson’s work, it is visually stunning. The film also features Saoirse Ronan, who at 15 already has an Oscar-nomination for her work in Atonement, and the early buzz is she may be a contender for this as well. The Lovely Bones is due out December 11th, and I’m expecting big things. Poster (and a few stills) courtesy of Yahoo after the jump.

Trailer: The Lovely Bones

The first trailer for Peter Jackson’s adapation of “The Lovely Bones” from Alice Sebold is out courtesy of Dreamworks. This is one of those books that people keep recommending to me but I’ve never got around to reading, but I can say the trailer looks fantastic. It has a promising cast including Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Surandon, Stanley Tucci and Michael Imperioli with the screenwriting coming from frequent Jackson contributors Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens.

Check out the trailer at apple.com or check after the jump.

Weekend Review: The Brothers Bloom

Grifters. Matchstick Men. Con artists. Cinema has a long and strong history with these suave, suit-wearing swindlers. Despite the large numbers, almost every film within this sub-genre follows the same formula: a team of confidence men get together for one last score before retirement. One of the members will protest, citing either riskiness or immorality, but will drop the argument quickly as the leader explains it away. The mark is picked, the dumber and richer the better, and with the audience only half-cued into the plot, twists and turns galore hamper and help the bilkers until the final twist arrives, squeezing the anti-heroes out of one final jam.

With all of this repetition, however, what makes the audience come back for more of the same story? The answer is simple: the film’s ability to make the audience question everything they see until they don’t know their left from right.

So enters The Brothers Bloom into the hustler genus. The sophomore effort from writer/director Rian Johnson, whose previous film, Brick, was a critically lauded reimagining of film noir, Bloom has the snap and crackle that he exhibited in his first film, but also some strangely placed pops along the way.