A Smokin' hot role for Angelina Jolie: BRIAN VINER reviews Those Who Wish Me Dead

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Published on Friday, 14 May 2021 06:36

Written by Daily mail

        To believe in the almost impressively porous plot of Those Who Wish Me Dead, you have first to believe in Angelina Jolie as a 'smoke-jumper', a specialist firefighter who parachutes out of planes to deal with rampaging forest blazes. Then you have to buy the idea that Jolie's character, Hannah, the only woman in a close-knit band of alpha males, might be the loudest, wittiest and hardest-drinking of them all, able to parry the merest hint of a suggestive remark with a wisecrack like a punch to the windpipe.Hannah has lips and cheekbones like no smoke-jumper in living memory, but her macho colleagues have evidently been trained not to notice them. If they do, they will surely dive into an inferno far worse than was ever ignited by a carelessly tossed cigarette end.Unfortunately, beyond the laddish banter, all is not well with Hannah. She is assailed by post-traumatic guilt, blaming herself for the loss of three young lives, having failed to suss the wind direction.Now, you'd think that her inevitable redemption, amid loads of terrifying footage of fires raging through Montana's forests with incredible, devastating swiftness — just 50 yards slower than Hannah's top sprinting speed, in fact — might be enough to sustain Taylor Sheridan's thriller.But no. It is an adaptation of Michael Koryta's novel of the same name, which means another weighty layer of plot involving a nosy accountant on the run from two ruthless assassins (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult, perpetuating the curious Hollywood rule that villains, even when they're given American accents, generally have to be played by actors from our side of the Atlantic, not theirs).Anyway, the accountant has discovered something so incriminating that the assassins seem prepared to commit mass murder, to torture a pregnant woman and to burn down half of Montana to stop it getting out. We never learn what it is.All we know is that the poor chap has passed his seismic secrets, on an old-fashioned piece of paper almost as if the internet age never happened, to his cute 12-year-old son, Connor (Finn Little).So, in a dispiritingly tinny echo of Peter Weir's 1985 classic Witness, the baddies' target becomes the kid. Can Hannah, into whom Connor unsurprisingly bumps while belting through a forest, save him? Heck, can she also save the forest? Well, it's Angelina Jolie, so anything is possible.The same is not so of Sheridan, whose credits include some terrific films (he scripted 2016's Hell Or High Water, one of my favourite modern-day westerns). Alas, my high hopes for this movie when I saw his name attached as director and co-writer were soon extinguished, leaving just a small, gently smouldering pile of expectations.The Secrets We Keep is another ropy thriller, set in Eisenhower-era smalltown America.
        Noomi Rapace plays Maja, a Romanian immigrant leading a wholesome suburban life with her kindly doctor husband (Chris Messina) and their young son, until the day she thinks she spots the former SS man who raped her and murdered her sister towards the end of the war, awakening terrible memories.This fellow, Thomas (Joel Kinnaman), turns out to be a European immigrant like her, but Swiss with a record of having worked throughout the war as a clerk in Zurich.Maja is certain he's lying, and by now has done what anyone would do in her circumstances (if only in films like this); belting him in the face with a hammer, bundling him into the boot of her car, and keeping him prisoner in the basement until he confesses to his crimes.Her nice husband is understandably more than a little nonplussed by all this, while Thomas's sudden disappearance sends his own wife frantic with worry.As Those Who Wish Me Dead is to Witness, so is The Secrets We Keep to Roman Polanski's 1994 film Death And The Maiden, dimly resonant but not remotely comparable. It is a thriller fatally devoid of thrills, and the occasional tension feels manufactured.At one point, writer-director Yuval Adler allows his camera to rest on a cinema showing Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest. Presumably, his intention is to fix the year as 1959. But the effect is to remind us of a filmmaker who knew how to electrify rather than anaesthetise an audience.Ironically, the new release least likely to have you slumping on the sofa is Some Kind Of Heaven, a documentary about the world's largest retirement community.There are 130,000 residents of The Villages, in Florida, which is billed as 'Disneyland for retirees'.Lance Oppenheim's film follows a few of them, as well as an elderly rascal who lives elsewhere but hangs out there on the lookout for affluent widows. He had no joy in the bars or the churches but found rich pickings at the swimming pools, in pursuit of his own inflatable version of the American Dream.

Those Who Wish Me Dead is in cinemas from Monday. The Secrets We Keep is on Sky Cinema; Some Kind Of Heaven on digital platforms, from today.

 source : Daily mail

Marvel announces title for Black Panther 2, shows Angelina Jolie in The Eternals for first time and shares release date for Spider-Man No Way Home

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Published on Tuesday, 04 May 2021 05:06

Written by Daily mail

         Marvel Entertainment made a big announcement on Monday morning via Twitter.The studio has a collection of new films in the pipeline and several of their projects have landed release dates. There were also fresh clips from some of their most anticipated movies in a fast-paced montage video.Among the highlights, Angelina Jolie was seen for the first time in The Eternals, Black Panther 2 was given a title and there was more footage of Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow.As far as the release dates, Spider-Man No Way Home will hit theaters on December 17, 2021 and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on July 8, 2022. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lily sit next to each other as they are spied in Ant Man.The Avengers is lined up in a quick clip.There is a scene from Black Panther with Chadwick Boseman and Michael B Jordan staring at other and then a crowd scene.Scarlett Johansson pops up several times in Black Widow which comes out July 8; she is seen in black on a motorcycle and also in white.Guardians Of The Galaxy was also included with several quick flashes as a third installment is coming out May 5, 2023.'Share the moments you will remember forever,' it says on the screen.Then the release dates were flashed on the scene.The Eternals will be out November 5, 2021 from Oscar winning director Chloe Zhao and Angelina Jolie was seen for the first time in the film.Also in the movie are Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani, Gemma Chan, Kit Harington, Brian Tyree Henry and Ma Dong-seok. The voiceover says, 'When you love something, you fight for it.' Spider-Man No Way Home is due out on December 17, 2021.Written and directed by Ryan Coogler, who was behind Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has a July 8, 2022 date. Thor Love And Thunder will be out May 6, 2022.Marvel teased that Fantastic Four - directed by Jon Watts - would arrive after Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, which hits on May 5, 2023.

 source : Daily mail

Angelina Jolie hints Brad Pitt divorce left her 'broken' but new movie Those Who Wish Me Dead 'healed her' as it reminded the star to 'stand back up'

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Published on Thursday, 29 April 2021 15:39

Written by Daily mail

       Angelina Jolie shed some light on how she has been feeling since her divorce from Brad Pitt, whom she is still in a custody battle with.This week the actress, 45, talked to Entertainment Tonight about how shooting the adventure film Those Who Wish Me Dead was 'very healing' for her.The Oscar winner was 'drawn' to the film's character - firefighter Hannah Faber who suffers from PTSD - and playing her taught Jolie how to 'stand back up,' she shared.The 45-year-old star has Maddox, 18, Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 14, and 12-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.She is fighting with Pitt over custody of the five younger kids as Maddox is an adult and can choose which parent to spent time with.But it wasn't the physical side of playing PTSD-stricken fire fighter Hannah Faber in Those Who Wish Me Dead that drew her to the project.It was the chance to depict someone getting back up after being left 'broken.'She told ET: 'I am drawn to people who have been through something and are broken and then find their way forward and overcome it.'As an artist, it's very healing to play people like that. She's been very healing for me, because you just get so broken and then you stand back up,' the performer added.'[Hannah is] a very broken person who carries a great deal of guilt.' In the film, smoke jumper Hannah takes it upon herself to try and protect a 12-year-old boy (Finn Little) who witnessed a murder and Angelina insisted the story is more than just a 'thriller'.She said: 'On its surface, it feels like a great thriller, a great adventure across an unusual terrain inside a great fire. Underneath it, it's a really emotional film. It's about people who have a great impact on each other and change each other. Emotionally and practically, they go through the fire.'The By the Sea filmmaker recently admitted she had returned to acting and taken on the role because her split from Brad meant it wasn't fair on her family for her to take on long directing projects for the time being.She said: 'I love directing, but I had a change in my family situation that's not made it possible for me to direct for a few years.'I needed to just do shorter jobs and be home more, so I kind of went back to doing a few acting jobs. That's really the truth of it.'
       Earlier this month she said she relished getting 'pretty beaten up' while making Those Who Wish Me Dead. 'There's nothing about this character that trained in martial arts or did anything special. I get pretty beaten up through this,' the Tomb Raider star explained. In the film she has to wear a 70lb firefighter suit at times.And playing an expert smoke jumper - the name given to specially-trained firefighters who parachute into the blazing wilderness - gave the brunette beauty more respect for firefighters the longer filming went on.She told Entertainment Weekly magazine: 'The first day we were in the fire, [I noticed] the heat and how quickly the winds would change and how quickly the fire would suddenly take to a tree that you weren't expecting.'Our respect just grew day after day for these people on the front lines and how difficult this work is.' While Angelina has been acting since she was just seven years old, she believes her decision to turn to directing in recent years has improved her performance by giving her a new perspective.She explained: 'In very technical terms, I'm more aware of what the director needs, and what other challenges they're facing, and how many different pieces are moving.' And as a result, she had a lot more patience and appreciation for the difficult stunts and set pieces in the movie.She added: 'Maybe when you're younger and you're having a huge day where you have to be cold and wet and emotional and crying, you're thinking about those things.'Now you've directed and you're older, and you realize that while you are going to be freezing and crying, there's also pyrotechnics going on, or multiple other situations. It pulls you out of yourself.' And Angelina couldn't suppress her maternal instinct on her latest job as director Taylor Sheridan had to call her out for being too nice on camera to Finn Little's character, Connor Casserly, who her alter ego was tasked with protecting.Angelina said: 'My character is not maternal by nature. Sometimes Taylor would correct me because my behaviour towards a child was different from [Hannah's] behaviour towards a child. It took me a little bit to treat [Little] badly, but I got there!' The filmmaker previously admitted she thinks she's 'lacking' in the skills to be a traditional stay-at-home parent.She said in February: 'I was never very good at sitting still. I feel like I'm lacking in all the skills to be a traditional stay-at-home mom. Even though I wanted to have many children and be a mom, I always imagined it kind of like Jane Goodall, traveling in the middle of the jungle somewhere. I didn't imagine it in that true, traditional sense.'

The film hits theaters and HBO on May 14.

 source : Daily mail

Angelina Jolie Dropping Hard Truths on Her Those Who Wish Me Dead Press Tour

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Published on Friday, 23 April 2021 04:52

Written by Vanity Fair

           If parents everywhere had a mantra, it could be, “You gotta do what you gotta do.” In other words, whatever is the kids’ best interest goes, and in this way, the stars are just like us. Take Angelina Jolie. For a time, she had to give up directing, which she loves, in favor of acting, specifically for the upcoming film Those Who Wish Me Dead, an action thriller in which she plays a firefighter. She made the change from director back to acting because she “needed to be home,” as she told Entertainment Weekly while on a press tour for the film. As recently as 2017, Jolie was on a directing kick, with films like Unbroken and First They Killed My Father, but says that she hasn’t been able to take on another such project due to her “family situation,” likely referring to her drawn-out divorce from Brad Pitt. “I love directing, but I had a change in my family situation that’s not made it possible for me to direct for a few years,” she told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Tuesday. “I needed to just do shorter jobs and be home more, so I kind of went back to doing a few acting jobs. That’s really the truth of it.” Jolie and Pitt’s divorce has now extended nearly five years; she first filed in September 2016. Though they have a private judge, select moments from the case have leaked, usually details in the tussles over custody of their six children. Most recently, Jolie volunteered to testify about domestic violence claims. A source familiar with the case told V.F. at the time that the accusations of domestic violence “were reported to the authorities and thoroughly investigated before concluding no wrongdoing, and therefore, no action was taken. These have been the same attacks repeated for the past four and a half years.” After it leaked that Jolie might testify, a source close to Pitt told Page Six that he felt the leak was intentional to sway trial outcomes and that he was feeling “more and more isolated from his children, and he’s devastated about it.” Neither Jolie nor Pitt’s camp has confirmed whether the judge ever called her to testify.

 source : Daily mail