Feel the heat? That’s Oscar fever son, and if you had any doubt that “Machine Gun Preacher” was going for the gold, check out the tagline on the newly launched poster: HOPE IS THE GREATEST WEAPON OF ALL. Coupled with a buff, machine gun wielding Gerard Butler standing in front of a small African child, that should warm the cockles of the old timers in the Academy who will probably start receiving For Your Consideration stuff with this stamped all over it any day now.
Directed by Marc Forster, and confirmed this morning to be making it’s world premiere at TIFF next month, the film is based on a true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing Hell’s Angel who found God, set up an orphanage in Sudan in the 1990s, and then formed a militia to prevent the children from being turned into child soldiers. Butler plays the lead role of Childers, with a decent cast including Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon, Kathy Baker and Souleymane Sy Savane in support. The filmmakers are pumping Butler as a potential Oscar contender and while we don’t see it yet, we’re willing to be convinced. Though his films and/or performances have been nominated, Forster himself has never been in contention for a statue at the Kodak Theater and we’re sure he’d like to turn that around as well. We’ll soon see, but this poster makes no mistake that it’s going for the emotional jugular.
Meanwhile, do we have to repeat ourselves? We’re fucking stoked for “Tinker Tailor Solider Spy.” Our man in the U.K. recently saw a trio of clips from the film at Empire Big Screen and described them as “flat out terrific” noting the “old-fashioned thrills” and that are “deeply suspenseful.” Well two more posters have arrived to stoke that excitement, giving Colin Firth and Tom Hardy the coded treatment Gary Oldman has already received. Our only complaint? Gary Oldman doesn’t work above the title when it’s not Gary Oldman being shown.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong, Svetlana Khodchenko, Toby Jones, John Hurt, Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke round out the cast of the film that will premiere in Venice in just a couple of weeks, before hitting U.K. theaters on September 16th and landing on our shores on November 18th. Did we say that we were excited about this yet? [RecentMoviePosters]
