Terrence Malick

'Song To Song' Returns To Austin With SXSW 2017 Premiere

By Holly Williams in Music / Festivals on 10 March 2017

South by Southwest Michael Fassbender Terrence Malick Rooney Mara Ryan Gosling Natalie Portman

The movie, shot at Austin City Limits, will make an impact at the city's other big event.

The new music drama from Terrence Malick, 'Song To Song' starring Michael Fassbender, is set to premiere on the opening night of the 2017 SXSW Festival this weekend, celebrating the Austin music aesthetic that the movie is all about and setting the course for a phenomenal event.

Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender and Ryan Gosling star in 'Song to Song'

Austin, Texas is one of the greatest cities for music in the world, playing host to two major music festivals each year; SXSW and Austin City Limits. It so happens that filmmaker Terrence Malick shot his latest movie 'Song To Song' at the latter in 2012, and they are bringing it back to Austin with a screening at the 24th edition of SXSW today (March 10th 2017).

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Song To Song - Featurette and Clip

Terrence Malick is set to release his latest movie 'Song to Song'; a musical drama that was partially shot at Austin City Limits musical festival back in 2012. Producers Sarah Green and Ken Kao, music supervisor Lauren Marie Mikus, Cole Alexander from Black Lips, singer-songwriter Lykke Li, and stars Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender open up about getting to work on extraordinary film at an even more extraordinary festival in a short featurette.

Continue: Song To Song - Featurette and Clip

Song To Song Trailer

The music scene of Austin, Texas becomes tainted by lust and illict desires as two aspiring songwriters named Faye (Rooney Mara) and BV (Ryan Gosling) become entwined in two overlapping love triangles with a major player in the music business named Cook (Michael Fassbender) - who encourages them to take their music careers further - and a charming waitress (Natalie Portman). As much as their lives are about making it in the industry and becoming world renowned successes, their lives get more complicated by disloyalty, temptation and infatuation with each other, pushing all of them ultimately further away. Can love last when betrayal lies at every corner?

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Knight Of Cups Trailer

Rick is one of the hottest screenwriters in Hollywood but after the death of his brother he finds himself becoming absorbed into a world of parties, drinking and excess. Parties are part of the norm for Rick but after the loss of his brother he finds himself evaluating his life and what it all means.

Spiralling uncontrollably his only real solace comes from short lived relationships with women, but each relationship actually brings Rick a little closer to the closure he seeks.

Knight Of Cups is the new film from Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life & The Thin Red Line)

Marion Cotillard Lined-Up For Lady MacBeth Role In Upcoming Film Adaption

By Joe Wilde in Movies / TV / Theatre on 22 August 2013

Marion Cotillard Michael Fassbender Kenneth Branagh Natalie Portman Terrence Malick James McAvoy

The French Oscar-winner replaces Natalie Portman, who was initially cast as Lady MacBeth, and will star alongside Michael Fassbender.

Marion Cotillard has been chosen to bring some Gallic glamour to one of Scotland's most malevolent (fictional) characters in the latest big screen adaption of William Shakespeare's MacBeth. The Oscar-winning actress is set to star along German/Irish actor Michael Fassbender, who will be taking on the titular role, under the direction of Snowtown's Justin Kurzel, The Hollywood Reporter first revealed.

Marion Cotillard will replace fellow Oscar-winner Natalie Portman in the latest adaption of 'The Scottish Play'

Distributed through StudioCanal and Film4, the latest rendition of the classic Shakespearean tragedy is being produced by The King's Speech backers Iain Canning and Emile Sherman, who run the production house See Saw. Which happens to be the same company that worked on the Fassbender-starring Shame. No further details of the film have been released just yet, so it is still unknown who Cotillard and Fassbender will be starring alongside when filming begins in January 2014.

Continue reading: Marion Cotillard Lined-Up For Lady MacBeth Role In Upcoming Film Adaption

Can Oscar Darling Ben Affleck Save Malick's To The Wonder? (Trailer)

By Michael West in Movies / TV / Theatre on 26 March 2013

Terrence Malick Ben Affleck Rachel McAdams Javier Bardem

To The Wonder is Terrence Malick's latest effort, though some critics are beginning to tire.

Ahead of its full U.S. release, a full theatrical trailer has been released for Terrence Malick's latest movie 'To The Wonder', about a couple from Oklahoma who run into problems after moving to Mont Saint-Michel - an rocky tidal island near Normandy, France.

Marina, played by Olga Kurylenko meets a priest and fellow exile (Javier Bardem) who is struggling with his vocation, while Neil, played by Ben Affleck, renews ties with childhood friend Jane (Rachel McAdams). Let us not beat around the bush here: critics hated Terrence Malick's latest effort and the reclusive filmmaker is probably beginning to divide critics more than even he would like. Tim Robey of the Daily Telegraph said, "The movie wants to explore looming crises of faith, but for Malick fans it's in serious danger of entailing one." Time Out said, "There's a phoniness to the film's people and places that keeps us at a fatal distance from the big ideas with which 'To the Wonder' seeks to engage us." There's a huge problem here. Malick presumably chose Mont Saint-Michel as its considered one of the most mythical and intriguing places on the planet. If it appears phony on-screen then 'To The Wonder' is done for.

Continue reading: Can Oscar Darling Ben Affleck Save Malick's To The Wonder? (Trailer)

To The Wonder Trailer

Neil is the subject of a cautionary tale about the dangers of falling in love. He thinks he has met the woman of his dreams when the European Marina flies over to the States to be with him. However, as beautiful and as perfect as their love seems, Neil can't stop seeing Jane; an old flame from the town he grew up in; as a spark is ignited between them once more. He becomes doubtful of his love life, and struggles to make sense of it while Father Quintana is equally struggling with his faith, unable to see past the pain and suffering in the world. Neil must understand that love is not perfect, nor is it easy in execution; you are at constant risk of failure, of betrayal and ultimately heartbreak. But love in its many forms is nonetheless a beauty, even if it can be unpredictable.

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To The Wonder Review

By Rich Cline

Very Good

Frankly, a bad Terrence Malick film is better than 90 percent of movies released in cinemas: but if you thought The Tree of Life was indulgent and overly kaleidoscopic, you should avoid this like the plague. Because this film is even looser and more internalised, taking an impressionistic approach to plot and characters that gives us very few specifics. It also leaves the cast to play mere hints of people who are having crises of faith and love.

After a lushly romantic trip to Paris and Mont Saint-Michel, Neil (Affleck) brings his French girlfriend Marina (Kurylenko) and her 10-year-old daughter Tatiana (Chiline) home to Oklahoma to live. The geography and culture are a shock to both of them, but Marina tells Neil, "If you love me, I'm OK here." So they begin to bond as a family, and Marina turns to local Catholic priest Quintana (Bardem) for support. But he's having a crisis of faith, and she's wondering if she's made a terrible mistake. So when her visa expires, she takes Tatiana and returns to France. In confusion, Neil then turns to his old flame Jane (McAdams). But as their rekindled romance begins to get serious, she realises that he's still in love with Marina.

Malick tells this story with snippets of ideas and feelings. Emmanuel Lubezki's sumptuous cinematography finds raw beauty everywhere, including in Malick's trademark sun-dappled leaves, waving wheat fields and rippling water. But there's also raw beauty in the actors' faces, and we understand their thoughts through breathy voiceovers that offer philosophical musings and biblical texts. As a result, only Marina emerges as a properly defined character with passion and yearnings; everyone else is sketchy and vague. Even Affleck and Bardem, who have strong on-screen presence, never quite register here.

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Shadowy Terrence Malick Shoots At Austin's Fun Fun Fun Festival (Photos)

By Contributor in Movies / TV / Theatre on 05 November 2012

Terrence Malick Val Kilmer Michael Fassbender Rooney Mara

Terence Malick At Fun Fun Fun Festival

A rare photograph of Terrence Malick, at the Fun Fun Fun Festival

Get a good look at the above photo, readers, because it's not too often you see pictures of the multiple-Oscar nominated film director Terrence Malick doing his day job. Malick was with a few of the cast who are appearing in his as-yet untitled music, including Michael Fassbender, Savanna Welch, Rooney Mara and a spotlight-stealing Val Kilmer -it's not often you can say that - at the Fun Fun Fun Festival in Austin, Texas where he is shooting. Though the director tried to hide his face with a large hat and sunglasses combo, there was no such shyness from Kilmer who, according to the Indiewire, joined band the Black Lips on stage before wielding a chainshaw, cutting his 'hair' (it looked like a wig) and then being 'forcibly removed'. Nice one Val.

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Amazing Grace Review

By Matt McKillop

Very Good

For a film with all the stylistic panache of a BBC period yawner and all the moral ambiguity of an after-school special, Amazing Grace is a surprisingly entertaining political drama. It tells the story of famed British abolitionist William Wilberforce's struggle to end the slave trade in England. Its high-minded earnestness and longsuffering main character will remind movie buffs of another cinematic treatment of British history, A Man for All Seasons, but it's another similarity shared by these two films that sets Amazing Grace apart from all but a few mainstream movies being made today. Amazing Grace, like A Man for All Seasons, is a serious film about religious conviction and the power of individual believers to effect change in a world in need of redemption.

Make no mistake: Amazing Grace is not a complex movie. The good guys are good and the bad guys aren't so much bad as they are yet to become good. Such a simple and optimistic moral vision may seem antiquated to some, but Amazing Grace doesn't apologize for its old-fashioned piety. As the action starts, Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) undergoes a religious conversion. His long-abandoned childhood faith has once again stirred his heart and moved him to commit to doing whatever he can to improve the world. Already a member of Parliament, he asks several of his friends -- including the clergyman John Newton (Albert Finney), who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace" -- if he should continue his political career or move on to a more spiritual pursuit. At all of his friends' urging, Wilberforce chooses politics and not long after takes an unpopular stand on the issue that will dominate his political career thereafter: the slave trade.

Continue reading: Amazing Grace Review