Movies: Charlize Theron Is Cipher, Lethal Villain Of “Fast & Furious 8”

Mad Max: Fury Road's Furiosa herself, Oscar®-winner Charlize Theron joins the cast of Universal Pictures' Fast & Furious 8 for a ride of a lifetime.

When it came to developing another worthy villain who could make Dom (Vin Diesel) betray his team, the filmmakers had an ace up their sleeves. Namely, the globally popular actress Charlize Theron, whose on screen cred alone would bring a new pedigreed threat to the team, while interweaving more of the “holy #%$@” plot twists that smack of the Fast franchise reveals.

“We’ve always had this idea that we wanted one of our villains to be this amazing woman, and honestly we had our eye on Charlize Theron,” confesses producer Neal Moritz. “We’ve been talking with her for a number of years about becoming part of the franchise, and when we came up with this idea for what her character could be, we went to her.”

Movies: MEET LOVE, TIME, DEATH IN THOUGHT-PROVOKING “COLLATERAL BEAUTY”

What would you say to Love, Time, and Death?

In New Line Cinema's thought-provoking drama Collateral Beauty, Howard (Will Smith), a successful New York advertising executive retreats from life after suffering a great tragedy. While his concerned friends try desperately to reconnect with him, he seeks answers from the universe by writing letters to Love, Time and Death. But it’s not until his notes bring unexpected personal responses that he begins to understand how these constants interlock in a life fully lived, and how even the deepest loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.

Addressing the basic premise of film, screenwriter Allan Loeb says, “the script was a Trojan Horse of a discourse about what I believe are the three most important elements of all of our existence. And I wanted to talk about it not from a Greek chorus point of view but literally from the mouths of Love, Time and Death.”

Toward this end, he crafted characters whose primary purpose was to take on the defining elements of these concepts and let them boldly challenge Howard’s attitudes and assumptions, face to face, about their purpose in the world and what they mean to him.

“We had some fun with it,” director David Frankel recalls, “with Helen Mirren’s character, Brigitte, confronting Howard about his thoughts on Death, Keira Knightley arguing the case for Love, and Jacob Latimore talking to him about Time.”

“Love has been pondered endlessly,” Will Smith, who plays Howard, notes. “Death, people tend to avoid, but everybody has to confront it, and when you confront death it burns away all the foolishness. You can only see the things that are important. And to me, the idea of time was the most difficult philosophical concept to figure out in the context of a funny scene, but I think Jacob Latimore did a great job with it. It was so interesting to sit around and ponder all of these ideas and develop the point and counterpoint, because, in the end, nobody really has an answer.”

Howard’s most recent letter to Love said simply, “Goodbye,” and it’s now incumbent upon Keira Knightley’s character, Amy, to make him realize that giving up on love is not an option. Quite the contrary; this is when love matters most. Says Knightley of the role, “She’s highly empathetic to Howard’s grief, empathy being a part of love, and talks to him in emotional terms that he can feel. But she wants him to understand that love isn’t just the part where everything is great; it’s also the unbelievable pain you feel when something is taken away, and that in no way diminishes it or ends it.”

In his letters, Howard has been especially harsh toward Time, and receives a response in kind, as similar accusations are thrown right back at him. “Howard writes what any father might say to Time, if he could,” Jacob Latimore concedes. “‘You’re dead tissue; you’re petrified; you kill beauty; you ruin things.’ All in all, he just wants to be with his child forever and, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. I skate up next to him to get his attention and get through his head, by telling him flat-out that he’s wrong. Time is a gift and he’s squandering it by doing nothing and letting it all go. There’s more to live for. Our conversations are frustrating, but I have to believe they’re helping him in ways he doesn’t understand until later.”

But it might be the conversations between Howard and the woman who speaks for Death that unsettle him the most – firstly, perhaps, because she isn’t at all what he might have pictured.

Consequently, her strategy was to surprise him in every conceivable way. “Helen decided that Death has this great sense of humor and so, when she interacts with Will, starting with their first meeting, she took an almost playful approach, which she balances later with a show of compassion, equally deep,” Frankel recounts.

In so doing, Mirren feels, the character is consistent with the story’s main theme, “that there can be something positive, beautiful and unexpected to be found in the most difficult circumstances. It’s very often in the humanity and the way people respond to one another. The essential center of the story is that idea of collateral beauty, and it’s my hope that people will come away from it with a sense of optimism and engagement in life.”

Opening across the Philippines on Sunday, January 8, 2017, Collateral Beauty is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

Movie News: GAVIN HOOD DIRECTS "EYE IN THE SKY"

“Eye in the Sky” brings Helen Mirren in the midst of complicated mission as she plays UK Colonel Katherine Powell who is tracking a British national, Susan Danford (Lex King), suspected of working with the East African terrorist group Al-Shabaab. The operation is a complex and coordinated effort between different countries. On the ground, Kenyan intelligence operatives, like Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi), keep an eye on the suspects. From the air, US Air Force pilots, like Lt. Steve Watts (Paul), remotely fly drones from a Nevada bunker to provide an eye in the sky. In London, Powell coordinates these various forces, as well as communicates to a panel of government officials above her. Her supervisor, Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Rickman), observes the operation remotely with a select group tasked with providing judicial and government oversight. UK Attorney General George Matherson (McCabe) adjudicates the legality of the unfolding operation, while Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Brian Woodale (Northam) and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Angela Northam (Monica Dolan) oversee the optics and ethics of the mission.  Together, these figures form the ‘kill chain’, an attack structure that co-ordinates target identification and the specific force dispatched to remove the target.

 Following His 2007 film “Rendition,” director Gavin Hood returns to the realm of contemporary warfare with the tense thriller “Eye in the Sky.” The decision to destroy the targets is further complicated by the problem of collateral damage, which again has to be measured from afar.   “Guy’s script created a very complex scenario,” continues filmmaker Gavin Hood, a South African filmmaker who counts the likes of “Ender’s Game” (2013), “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (2009) and “Tsotsi” (2005) among his directing credits. “The script is informative in the way that it sets up the landscape, the chain of command and the way modern drone warfare is used.

 The collateral damage caused by a drone strike extends beyond potential human casualties. The killing of civilians, even accidentally, has a profound impact on the propaganda war.   “That is a very important conversation,” says Hood. “Are drone strikes, which inevitably do result in civilian casualties, actually generating so much anti-Western sentiment that whatever success they may have in taking out a high-value individual, is offset by a growing animosity for the West? That’s a propaganda question. In war, propaganda is an extremely important tool. Are we creating negative propaganda towards the West through the use of drones?

“I think the film asks whether we really are winning when using this form of warfare. Are we really winning when using these drones? When should we use this technology? What are the consequences of using this technology? Come and see this movie and you can decide for yourself.”

 "Eye in the Sky” opens July 20 in cinemas nationwide from Pioneer Films.

Movies: MISSION TO CAPTURE TURNS KILL MISSION IN “EYE IN THE SKY”

Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren stars in the white-knuckle thriller “Eye in the Sky” that tackles the moral ambiguities of modern-day warfare. Co-starring with Mirren are three-time Emmy Award winner Aaron Paul (from “Breaking Bad”) and the late Alan Rickman (best known for his role in the Harry Potter films as Professor Severus Snape).

 A contemporary international thriller set in the shadowy world of remotely piloted drone warfare, “Eye in the Sky” tracks London-based military intelligence officer Colonel Katherine Powell (Mirren) who is remotely commanding a top secret drone operation to capture a group of dangerous terrorists from their safe-house in Nairobi, Kenya. The mission suddenly escalates from a “capture” to a “kill” operation as Powell realizes that the terrorists are about to embark on a deadly suicide mission. From his base in Nevada, American drone pilot Steve Watts (Paul) is poised to destroy the safe-house when a nine year old girl enters the kill zone just outside the walls of the house. With unforeseen collateral damage now entering the equation, the impossible decision of when to strike gets passed up the “kill chain” of politicians and lawyers as the seconds tick down.

 Director Gavin Hood returns to the realm of contemporary warfare with the tense thriller “Eye in the Sky,” which explores both the practical application and the ethical ramifications of drone warfare.  “I was aware of all the different aspects of drone warfare,” begins Hood, “because I’d made a film about American military adventures with Rendition. I’d read articles, I’d read opinions and I’d read books. I had always tried to keep up-to-date with what was happening in the American military but I hadn’t taken a deep dive into this very specific question of targeted assassination.”

 The collateral damage caused by a drone strike extends beyond potential human casualties. The killing of civilians, even accidentally, has a profound impact on the propaganda war.  For the filmmakers, it was vital that the narrative posed these difficult questions while asking the audience to decide on the answers. “What you don’t want to do as a director is preach to your audience,” says Hood. “You want to create a sense of pace, a sense of tension, a thriller, while at the same time, raising difficult, philosophical questions in the mind of the audience.

 "In order to do that you have to keep the story moving forward so as to keep the tension alive, while at the same time finding moments where the story breathes, which allows the audience to catch up. You need to give the audience time to process the arguments.

 "And then, just when the audience thinks they have sided with one particular argument, you throw in another argument that turns it on its head and has the viewer asking, ‘Wait a minute, do I really think what I just thought a minute ago? No, maybe I don’t.’ And just when they’re agreeing with someone else, here comes another point of view.”

 "Eye in the Sky” opens July 20 in cinemas nationwide from Pioneer Films. 

 Trailer link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Njw2q7P-c&feature=youtu.be