Matt Damon has a great knack of starring in films that I enjoy, I really can’t think of him being involved in a sh*tty film the last five years or so. From viewing the trailer it looks like he’s adding another great film to his CV, the film looks stunning. Also if you have a penchant for suits I think you’ve got a winner with this! The Adjustment Bureau is set for release 17th September.

Do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us? Matt Damon stars in the thriller The Adjustment Bureau as a man who glimpses the future Fate has planned for him and realizes he wants something else. To get it, he must pursue the only woman he’s ever loved across, under and through the streets of modern-day New York. On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Damon) meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt)–a woman like none he’s ever known. But just as he realizes he’s falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart.

David learns he is up against the agents of Fate itself–the men of The Adjustment Bureau–who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path…or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her. The Adjustment Bureau is Written and Directed by George Nolfi (writer of Ocean’s Twelve, co-writer of The Bourne Ultimatum) and stars Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, Terrence Stamp, Shoreh Agdashloo, John Slattery and Michael Kelly, it is based on the Philip K Dick short story The Adjustment Team.

Universal Pictures have released the first trailer for The Adjustment Bureau and it looks pretty awesome (especially if you like seeing people run away from men in suits)! I really like the concept of the film, I’m a complete sucker for mysery/thrillers as it is, the concept alone sold me. The Adjustment Bureau is Written and Directed by George Nolfi (writer of Ocean’s Twelve, co-writer of The Bourne Ultimatum) and stars Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie (who was great in Hurt Locker), Terrence Stamp, Shoreh Agdashloo, John Slattery and Michael Kelly, it is based on the Philip K Dick short story The Adjustment Team. The Adjustment Bureau is in cinemas the 30th July in the US, not sure of a UK release date yet.

Do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us? Matt Damon stars in the thriller The Adjustment Bureau as a man who glimpses the future Fate has planned for him and realizes he wants something else. To get it, he must pursue the only woman he’s ever loved across, under and through the streets of modern-day New York.

On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Damon) meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt)–a woman like none he’s ever known. But just as he realizes he’s falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart.

David learns he is up against the agents of Fate itself–the men of The Adjustment Bureau–who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path…or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her.

The first 2 images from The Adjustment Bureau have just been released online – I have no idea what they’re looking at, but it looks pretty interesting!  This looks like something to look forward too, the trailer should be unleashed in a few weeks so look out for that. The Adjustment Bureau is Written and Directed by George Nolfi (writer of Ocean’s Twelve, co-writer of The Bourne Ultimatum) and stars Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie (who was great in Hurt Locker), Terrence Stamp, Shoreh Agdashloo, John Slattery and Michael Kelly, it is based on the Philip K Dick short story The Adjustment Team. The Adjustment Bureau is in cinemas the 30th July in the US, not sure of a UK release date yet.

Do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us? Matt Damon stars in the thriller The Adjustment Bureau as a man who glimpses the future Fate has planned for him and realizes he wants something else. To get it, he must pursue the only woman he’s ever loved across, under and through the streets of modern-day New York.

On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Damon) meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt)–a woman like none he’s ever known. But just as he realizes he’s falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart.

David learns he is up against the agents of Fate itself–the men of The Adjustment Bureau–who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path…or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her.

Green Zone is a hell of a movie! Starring Matt Damon in his third collaboration with Director Paul Greengass (The Bourne Ultimatum and The Bourne Supremecy) it’s as potent an action thriller as you could expect. As public opinion is more and more against the invasion of Iraq and more questions are being asked around the reasons of going to war, whether we went to war under false premises and fabricated intelligence (which I personally believe) or not, it’s good to see a film so current. Check out my interview with Matt Damon below.

About a pair of CIA agents (Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear) on the trail of Weapons of Mass Destruction and a foreign correspondent following their mission. Inspired by “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” Green Zone is directed by Paul Greengass of Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum as well as Bloody Sunday and United 93. The script was written by Brian Helgeland, of L.A. Confidential, Conspiracy Theory, Mystic River, and Man on Fire previously. This is loosely based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s non-fiction book The Imperial Life in Emerald City.

Green Zone is a really thrilling experience, after the two Bourne Movies we expected no less from it, what persuaded you to make this the third collaboration between you and Paul Greengrass?

Matt Damon: Once we had the Rajiv’s book ‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City’, even though we didn’t know what the movie was gonna be, there was so much there and there was so much that was interesting. Again the question was can we make a film with audience appeal and get a good chunk of the Bourne audience into a film that was about fictional character in the real world as opposed to a fictional character in a fictional world.

What was it like working with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd? His style is really in your face and documentary like.

Matt Damon: As an actor working with him it’s great because he and Paul open up an environment where you have such freedom. There was never a mark laid down or someone saying you have to stand here or to deliver your line this way, on the contrary their interest lay totally in capturing something in real time. Normally your restricted by the camera load which is an 11 minute load, what they did is that they had a backup camera so they’d shoot for 11 minutes then when that ran out they’d pick up another camera immediately and keep going, that allowed the actors and extras, which their were many whether they were soldiers or children to stay in that heightened reality and stay in that world, thing’s weren’t breaking down, going to get some tea or something like that, these exercises would carry half an hour at a time, then everybody would say ok let’s take a break. I think that helps the acting because it’s so real, it’s very real to buy into that reality when the camera is asking you technically nothing at all. To be totally liberated from the technical side of filming gives you something in your performance.

When are you gonna take a break!

Matt Damon: I just finished filming with Clint Eastwood a few days ago, that’s like taking time off, no more than 10 hours a day and it’s a very civilized schedule, much more civilized than Greengrass let me tell you (laughs). I want to direct one day so I can’t pass up the chance of working with the people I’m getting a chance to work with, Paul Greengrass three times now, Clint Eastwood twice now, I’m gonna work with the Coen Brothers next month, as long as that keeps happening I can’t see me taking time of, unless the work dried up.

Where do you see the US public’s opinion on Iraq now, as you’ve been over here you’ve probably heard we’ve got a public inquiry, is there a stomach for that in America?

Matt Damon: There’s a very different atmosphere in America right now, if you engage in a discussion with any American right now on war Afghanistan will come up first, the issues of the economy and certainly jobs are what most people are thinking of right now, Iraq isn’t on the front page right now as it is here, where you’ve got the Chilcot inquiry, I’m interested in seeing how we do there and how we do here, but whether or not it’s at the forefront of everyone’s consciousness at home right now, certainly there will be an appetite at some time, whether that’s now or later, basically we can never predict what the Zeitgeist will be two years down the road, we wanted to make the movie we wanted and we got to make that movie. Hopefully the studio will will be rewarded for their trust.

Last Sunday London welcomed Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon for Invictus’s European Press Conference. Below is  the second half of what took place, you can check out part 1 here. Invictus is in UK cinemas 5th Febuary.

I read that you try to take as little amount of takes as possible while making your film.

Clint Eastwood: I always try to do one, it doesn’t necessarily work out that way though. If that one take works I’ll take that, if the third take works I’ll print that. Sometimes I do like to have a few different set ups but I’ll try and make a decision right at that time, whether it’s good, bad or otherwise. I think once you start doing, thirty or forty takes, you can get lost somewhere and you don’t know what you are looking for, I like to think I know what I’m looking for, right or wrong.

As actors what’s it like working with Clint?

Morgan Freeman: I take Clint as my favourite director to work with because I respond very well to the one or two take director, he’s the most consistent in that area. Directors who as Clint said that need seventeen takes, I don’t think they know what they want, it certainly doesn’t help the actors sense or security when he has to keep going over and over things and you don’t know why, you think what am I doing, what do you want,.

Matt Damon: Yeah some people just collect a bunch of footage and edit it later. You definitely feel a lot more protected when the director is moving on, you feel like something is happening, so you know they are watching intently. Coppolla told me that Antonioni said to him, this is before the days of video village that as a director you should stand right next to the camera, look with your naked eye and if you see something that is real to you, you look up to your operator and if your operator gives you the look that yeah I saw that too, then you print and move on. Clint basically cuts on camera, I’ve worked with a couple of guys who do that and as Morgan said it gives you a real sense of security because you know you’re in very able hands and the director is watching the movie unfold, your getting what you wanna get and it doesn’t take seventeen hours to get it.

Clint Eastwood: I’ve always felt a lot of times when a person has to do twenty takes on something, it’s usually for one or two reason, either they don’t quite know what they’re looking for or also they don’ know what there next set up is so they’re using up the time and utilising the actors to kill time until some great idea comes to them, that becomes a bit of a problem, there not abusing the actors because they’re there to act but it’s a bit unfair, it will give them a big sense of insecurity as Morgan said, I’ve worked with people like that myself. In the old days a lot of people done it defensively because they felt they didn’t want to leave a load of extra film because they didn’t want the studio executives to come in and recur their film and restructure everything, so they would give them it as little as possible, there’s only one way of putting it together, that was done back in the thirty’s and forty’s when the execs had a tremendous amount of power

Looking over your films as a director which has been the biggest challenge for you and why? And which of your acting performances are you most proud of?

Clint Eastwood: When you’ve done as many films as I’ve done you just keep going, I never look back and think too much about them, I’ve done some work I’ve been proud of over the years but which is my favourite, I don’t know. I’ve had little jumps in my career, like Unforgiven and then when I tried to do something different, Letters To Iwo Jima I liked doing a lot, anything with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon (laughs). I like to get a chance too work with people I respect a lot. A favourite performance I don’t know. Once the films done and once something been performed, it’s up to someone else to make a judgement on it.

When you choose the subject do you trust in your instincts? How do you choose your films?

Clint Eastwood: Yes I do, I always trust my instincts, it was just a story that I liked, I didn’t approach it about a picture about Rugby, we obviously wanted to make the Rugby very good because that was an inspiration for Mr Mandela, to utilize it as a tool to unite his country. Morgan called me and said look I’ve got a really good script, he didn’t even tell me it was about Nelson Mandela, so I read the script and liked it very much, I’ve always been an admirer of Nelson Mandela, I was amazed by reading the script and the book because it seems so creative, such a creative way to unify a country, which was in really deep trouble, almost on the brink of civil war. Mr Mandela had been in prison for quite a few years, nobody knew what was gonna happen when he came out, then he came out with this kind of an imagination, I just thought this is something politicians around the world could learn a lot from, having a certain creativity and bringing people together, instead of just talking about it he was doing it, that was my reason for doing the picture, Rugby was exciting and that was fun, but even if it was Nelson Mandela and Texas Hold Em Poker I still would have done it because I admire the man.

Last Sunday London welcomed Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon for Invictus’s European Press Conference. Below is  half of what took place, I will be getting up the second half in time for Invictus’s UK release on Friday. Check it out!

Clint Eastwood your at an age where most of us would be taking it a bit easier, yet you continue making challenging movies one after an other, you make some of the best movies we will see in any year, what is the driving force behind you? Why do you continue to work so much and so well?

Clint Eastwood: I sort of planned not working at this particular time in life, but nobody can plan on what they’re gonna do at my age of 49 (laughs). I just feel like I’m enjoying my work more now than I ever have, or just as much certainly. I’m at an age that I can take up more challenges than I have in the past because I know more and of course at this age you can forget more, but I’m trying to avoid that. I just enjoy it, I enjoy the process, being behind the camera, I enjoy that equally as much as being in front of the camera. I’ve been lucky enough to work in a profession that I’ve really liked, so I figured I’ll continue until someone hits me over the head and says get out (Laughs).

Matt you’ve always looked pretty handy when your fighting in your other films, how does that compare to Rugby?

Matt Damon: Any time your making a movie, it’s all choreography, except for this game, it’s a lot tougher to choreograph, it’s a lot more uncontrolled. A lot of the stuff we shot was what we called free play, just letting these guys go and nail each other and capture that. There was a whole physical challenge to get ready for the roll because I was playing a very famous man who everybody knows. It’s like any job though, it’s like a magic trick, ultimately your only job in a film is for the audience to believe, if they don’t for even a second you’ve failed because your taking them out of the story. You have to troubleshoot a year for the movie and think what will get me in trouble here and what do I have to solve, so Clint helped me out, Francois is a BIG guy and I’m an average sized guy, I thought people know what I look like and people know what he looked like how are we gonna get around this. Clint said maybe we can’t make you look 6′4 but we could make you look taller than 5′10, maybe we can make people not ask the question, so we used little tricks with the camera to make me look larger, shooting me higher, an insole in my shoe to give me an extra inch or so in height. Little things like that, then obviously a lot of work in the gym and working on the accent to make it believable.

From a filmakers point of view what were the challenges of filming a Rugby match compared to a dramatic scene?

Clint Eastwood: I didn’t grow up with Rugby, but I went and saw a lot matches, talked to a lot of people who have played, I talked to the coach at the Univercity Of California, a Rugby player by the name of Jack Clarke who gave a whole run down of the game, then I watched his practises and everything he did there. Then when we got to South Africa we got Chester, Francois and various people who had been in the game to go over it, so after talking to people I started to get a feel of the game and we hired Rugby players to play the parts, with the exception of Matt and one or two others, but they all came up to the game real fast so we just had them play. Chester was our coach, he would just tell the players to go out there and play Rugby, so they would be hitting real hard, our biggest challenge was to stay out of the way (laughs). So we did, our camera crew are used to working on the fly and that’s the way we approached it.

You’ve said Gran Torino will be your last time in front of the camera, do you still feel that way?

Clint Eastwood: I said that when we made Million Dollar Baby as well, the film was a success so I thought this will be a good time to quit on top, unlike most people who sort of drift down to the end, or like a prize fighter who fights one two many fights. But then Gran Torino came along, it was an interesting part, it was a man my age, I figured I wasn’t stretching that much so I decided on giving it another shot, I still say that, I might do ten roles, if ten great roles come up, but I don’t know how many great roles there are for a man of my age, 38 (laughs). You just don’t know, I had always planned when I starting directing in 1970 that after a few years I’d get tired of looking at myself on the screen but I continued on, every so often something pops up, I’m not saying it will never happen again, but the odds get less as you get older, when you set yourself in roles that fit your age group.

Has Nelson Mandela seen the film and what was his reaction? Also did you consult with him while creating the film?

Morgan Freeman: Yeah he’s seen it, he smiled a lot and nodded (laughs). When I first came onn screen he leaned over to me and said I know this fellow (laughs). I got the impression he wasn’t embarrassed. I didn’t consult with him before, I just consulted tapes, films on him, things like that. I didn’t go to him and say what do you feel about this or that because he’s 90 years old.

What was the most challenging thing about playing Mandela?

Morgan Freeman: The most challenging was the voice, the accent if you will. Everything else was easy, I’ve been watching him for years. Once I got the notion that one of these days I’d be playing him on screen it just became a thing of paying attention to him every chance I got. Whenever I was in his company, or when I saw him on screen I just watched him like one of these days I’m gonna have to do that

Invictus is in cinemas Febuary 5th

Last night Leicester Square welcomed Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon to the UK premiere of Invictus. The press conference took place yesterday as well, I’m gonna write that up for Tuesday, just in time for the films UK release  Friday the 5th. I’d strongly advise checking it out, it’s very inspirational – the most obvious thing I’ve typed all day, but yes it really is!

First off, yes it does look like a Bourne movie, but so what, it gets a pass from me, I love intelligent action films, I always like Matt Damon and I thoroughly enjoyed the Bourne films. The featurette gives you a bit more information about the story than the trailers so far. This is definitely one of the films I’m anticipating most this year

About a pair of CIA agents (Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear) on the trail of Weapons of Mass Destruction and a foreign correspondent following their mission. Inspired by “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” Green Zone is directed by Paul Greengass of Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum as well as Bloody Sunday and United 93. The script was written by Brian Helgeland, of L.A. Confidential, Conspiracy Theory, Mystic River, and Man on Fire previously. This is loosely based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s non-fiction book The Imperial Life in Emerald City.

Below are some new clips from Clint Eastwood’s upcoming film – Invictus, one of the favorite’s for this years Best Picture at the Oscar’s (Clint Eastwood always seems to be a favorite of the Academy along with George Clooney). Invictus stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar the South African Rugby team captain. At the National Board Of Review Clint Eastwood was awarded the best director for Invictus while Morgan Freeman and George Clooney split the best actor award.

Based on the book by John Carlin Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, Invictus is the story of South Africa’s bid to host the Rugby World Cup in 1995, and then the home team’s campaign in the competition to win the trophy (if you know your stuff they beat New Zealand 15-12 in the final). The film is set just a few short years after the end of apartheid, Mandela’s release from prison and election as President, at the time and still to an extent now the country was deeply and bitterly divided, which threatened at times to scupper the campaign. The trailer should be released within the next two weeks

Invictus is in UK cinemas February 5, 2010, and in the US December 11th just in time for Oscar season.

Been looking forward to this for a while now, was pissed it got pushed back! the three films I was looking forward to this year (Terrence Malick’s Tree Of Life, Scorsese’s Shutter and this) were all delayed to a bloody 2010 release, Green Zone now has a release date of March 12th, 2010. Paul Greengrass director of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum re teams with Damon for Green Zone, Damon stars as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, a rogue U.S. Army officer who must hunt through covert and faulty intelligence hidden on foreign soil before war escalates in an unstable region. Is does look a bit Bourne’esque but I give that a pass I’m a sucker for intelligent action films!

About a pair of CIA agents (Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear) on the trail of Weapons of Mass Destruction and a foreign correspondent following their mission. Inspired by “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” Green Zone is directed by Paul Greengass of Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum as well as Bloody Sunday and United 93. The script was written by Brian Helgeland, of L.A. Confidential, Conspiracy Theory, Mystic River, and Man on Fire previously. This is loosely based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s non-fiction book The Imperial Life in Emerald City.

International trailer

UK Trailer