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.

Related posts:

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?

The Awakening (2011) or, Sad English Orphanage Horror!

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Something seems creepily amiss on this poster for Nick Murphy's The Awakening

 

In 1921, England's leading supernatural debunker gets hired by a countryside orphanage, which is possibly haunted by a boy who passed away years ago ...

 

The Awakening slowly builds up its story with relatively few and simple scare effects. It features good acting from Rebecca Hall (The Gift (2015)), Dominic West (300 (2006)) and Imelda Staunton (Another Year (2010)) as well as deft camerawork (by cinematographer Eduard Grau (Buried (2010))) in which everything is held in cool, desaturated tones. It produces chills and goosebumps more than once, SPOILER in particular in the scenes with the dollhouse.

On the downside, The Awakening is a bit overlong, which makes our attention with it at times a bit strained. SPOILER It all culminates as one of the saddest, most tragic ghost stories that I can recall.

The film is written by Stephen Volk (Octane (2003)) and co-writer-director Nick Murphy (Blood (2012)). It is a fair ghost horror although a few steps under a film like The Orphanage/El Orfanato (2007), which it clearly aspires towards.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 3 mil. £, equal to approximately 3.7 mil. $

Box office: Reportedly 4.4 mil. $

= Big flop

[The Awakening was released November 11 (the UK) and runs 107 minutes. Filming took place in England and Scotland from July 2010. The film opened #41 in 70 theaters to a paltry 95k $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 209k $ (4.8 % of the total gross). The film did better in its native UK, although its other country grosses are not reported online. The Awakening is fresh at 61 % with a 5.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Awakening?

The Town (2010) - Renner stands out in entertaining, flawed training picture for Affleck

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This poster for Ben Affleck's The Town conjures up a threatening vibe

 

A young, beautiful bank director is taken hostage, then freed. One of the robbers falls in love with her. We get to know the bank robbers' mecca: Charlestown, Boston, Massachusetts.

 

The Town is written by Peter Craig (Blood Father (2016)), Aaron Stockard (Gone Baby Gone (2007)) and great Californian co-writer-director-star Ben Affleck (Argo (2012)), based on the novel Prince of Thieves (2004) by Chuck Hogan (The Standoff (1995)). It has a good car chase, and Jeremy Renner (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)) is good in it.

The film is pretty entertaining, although it bears the mark of being another 'training movie' for Affleck as director and has a very drawn out ending. The purpose of the film seems to hang in the air to some degree.

Related reviews:

Ben Affleck: Argo (2012) or, The Hollywood Hero (producer-director-star)

Armageddon (1998) or, Macho Men Save Earth From Disaster! (actor)

Dazed and Confused (1993) - Linklater's stoner youth nostalgia is a blast (actor)

Jeremy Renner gives an interview about the film at the Toronto International Film Festival here

Cost: 37 mil. $

Box office: 154 mil. $

= Big hit

[The Town premiered September 8 (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 124 minutes. Warner bought the rights to the book in 2006. Sheldon Turner's developing job was tossed out, as Affleck was hired in 2008. He and his high school mate Stockard did research in Charlestown, including involving locals as extras, and Affleck went specifically for Pete Postlethwaite, who died soon after its release, for the film after seeing his audition tape for Inception. Filming took place from August - September 2009 in Massachusets, including Charlestown, and Connecticut. The claims in The Town about the crime in Charlestown are hugely exaggerated and also refer to a (smaller) spike that happened in the 1990s. The film opened #1 with a 23.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for 3 weeks in total and grossed 92.1 mil. $ (59.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 8.9 mil. $ (5.8 %) and the UK with 7.4 mil. $ (4.8 %). The film received one Oscar nomination: Best Supporting Actor (Renner), which it lost to Christian Bale for The Fighter. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. A 2012 extended cut of around 150 minutes has also been released; it apparently has a darker ending and is preferred by Affleck. The Town is certified fresh at 94 % with a 7.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Town?

Everything Must Go (2010) - Rush and Ferrell's great Carver adaptation

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2 Film Excess nominations:

Best Screenplay: Dan Rush (lost to Christopher Nolan for Inception)
Best Lead Actor: Will Ferrell, also for Megamind (lost to Stephen Dorff for Somewhere)
 
+ Best Adaptation of the Year

Will Ferrell does look a little lost on this poster for Dan Rush's Everything Must Go

Will Ferrell (Stranger than Fiction (2006))  plays a man who loses his job, his wife and his car and deals with these defeats by deciding to move out onto his front lawn and start drinking.

Everything Must Go is a Raymond Carver (Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976)) adaptation, based on his short story Why Don't You Dance? (1978), written and directed by Dan Rush as his first and only credit to date. It has just the needed shot of comedy in the shape of Ferrell and some extra warmth in Rush's script, which Carver's story is likely to have be missing.
Ferrell is eminent in the for him rare, more dramatic part, and Rebecca Hall (The Gift (2015)) and Laura Dern (When the Game Stands Tall (2014)) are both good in supporting parts. Everything Must Go is a nice dramedy and a fine film SPOILER with a hopeful ending that is decidedly un-Carveresque.

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 5 mil. $
Box office: 2.7 mil. $ (North America only)
= Unknown (looks like a huge flop)
[Everything Must Go premiered September 10 (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 97 minutes. Rush's script was featured on the 2008 Blacklist, an online list of the most liked unproduced scripts around. Filming took place in Arizona. The film was only released in half a dozen countries. It opened #15 with 0.7 mil. $ in North America, where it peaked in just 245 theaters. It made under 100k $ in each three of its foreign  markets (South Africa, Brazil and the UK), which are reported. Regrettably, poor distribution and audiences bailing on Ferrell in an attempt at a more serious film seem to have killed the film theatrically. Everything Must Go is certified fresh at 75 % with a 6.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Everything Must Go?