Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Gift (2015)

2/11/2021

The Gift (2015) - Edgerton's impressive thriller debut

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Joel Edgerton with marked facial features and dark-colored hair looks ominous with a big present on this poster for his own The Gift

An attractive, successful married couple move into a house in the husband's childhood neighborhood in California, where an old schoolmate looks them up with gifts and disturbing behavior ...

The Gift is written and directed by great Australian filmmaker, debuting writer/co-producer/co-star/director Joel Edgerton (Jac et Bill (1996, short)).

Edgerton creates a dynamite thriller as his first venture into feature directing here: Elegantly told and shot, (by cinematographer Eduard Grau (Buried (2010))), The Gift is a whispering, creeping time, carefully dosed by what seems like the hand of an expert.

Jason Bateman (Up in the Air (2009)) is particularly terrific, but also Rebecca Hall (A Bag of Hammers (2011)) and Edgerton himself (as the blast from the past Gordo character) are excellent. It is also good to see Busy Phillips (Thrilling Adventure Hour Live (2015)) again, an underused actress, who looks lovely here.

The Gift is a complex film with many layers, which can't help but haunt one's mind for a time after it's over. An impressive feat.

Joel Edgerton: Loving (2016) - Edgerton and Negga own the screen in Nichols' powerful period drama (co-star)

It Comes at Night (2017) - Shults' sparse horror leaves too much unanswered (actor)

Midnight Special (2016) - Nichols' strange, cool sci-fi curveball (co-star)

The Rover (2014) - A dreary journey to Michôd's desolate, hopeless Australia (story contributor)

The Great Gatsby (2013) - Luhrmann exuberance and great stars create thrilling adaptation (co-star)

Warrior (2011) - O'Connor's superbly acted MMA drama packs emotional fireworks (co-star)

The Thing/The Thing Awakens/The Thing: The Beginning (2011) - Career-ending, flawed monster horror prequel (actor)

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 5 mil. $

Box office: 58.9 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 11.78 times its cost)

[The Gift premiered 30 July (Los Angeles) and runs 108 minutes. Shooting took 25 days from January - February 2015 in Los Angeles, California. Edgerton only began shooting his own scenes 2 weeks into the shoot, and had his older brother, director Nash Edgerton help behind the camera then. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and fellow new release Fantastic Four to an 11.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 43.7 mil. $ (74.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2.2 mil. $ (3.7 %) and Australia with 1.7 mil. $ (2.9 %). Edgerton returned with Boy Erased (2018). As an actor he returned in Black Mass (2015); Bateman in The Family Fang (2015); and Hall in Christine (2016). The Gift is certified fresh at 91 % with a 7.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Gift?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

2/11/2021

The Gift (2015) - Edgerton's impressive thriller debut

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