Today I was fortunate enough to attend a press screening for Jerusalema: Gangster’s Paradise, and I have to say it was brilliant, it was captivating throughout and by a stretch it was the most gritty and important film I’ve seen so far this year. Expect to see a full review from me in the next few weeks. The film has been doing the rounds on the film festival circuit and is now set to be released to the general public June 11th in the US and July 9th in the UK. South African cinema has released some of the best films of the last few years for me with this, Tsotsi and District 9

Inspired by a true story, Gangster’s Paradise: Jerusalema is an unflinching look into the crime, corruption and the transgressions of those looking to survive in the most crime-infested district of Johannesburg.

Starting off with simple smash and grabs, and petty crime, Lucky Kunene quickly graduates to more aggressive heists such as armed robbery and carjacking. Soon, Lucky realizes he needs a bigger score to fulfill his goals of making it big, and escaping from the slums, to a dream house by the sea. Kunene hatches an elaborate and violent plan to make his fortune – hijacking buildings from landlords of Johannesburg tenements by winning the favor of the tenants and then holding their rent hostage from the landowners. His high-profile real estate acquisitions attract the attention of the local police force who have no qualms about using unprovoked brutality to bring him down. His trouble with the law, coupled with an escalating war between a local drug lord, creates a tense standoff: both sides are closing in, and Kunene must stay one step ahead—or his empire, and his life, will come crashing down. Gangster’s Paradise: Jerusalema is written and directed by Ralph Ziman, and stars Rapaulana Seiphemo (Tsotsi), Robert Hobbs (District 9), Kenneth Nkosi (District 9), Eugene Khumbanyiwa (District 9), and Louise Saint-Claire (District 9).

As opposed to this film as I am, I have to admit this poster is pretty awesome, none of that floating head crap that most commercial films are using nowadays, the trailer was pretty good as well to be fair. I’m so against it because Michael Bay’s (Bad Boys and Transformers Director) production company, Platinum Dunes are the ones producing this, they’ve remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher and Friday The 13^th so far, with The Birds, Rosemary’s Baby and I’m sure any iconic horror film to cash in from lined up in the future.

As the May 14^th release date of Robin Hood is slowly creeping nearer and nearer, a brand new featurette has been released with Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong and director Ridley Scott talking about what drives the character of Robin Hood. I’ve started to come of the fence with this one, which after considering how much I loved Gladiator is pretty dumb. From the clips I’ve seen Russell Crowe’s accent sounds a bit dodgy, to be fair though I’ll have have to hear it in context than just one liners here and there.

I attended the screening for this on Tuesday but I can’t tell you what I thought until nearer the release date, Momentum/Paramount will send their Ninja Monkey’s to take me out if I do. (Believe me, they have Ninja Monkey’s that can fly and run up walls). Check out the trailer in the mean time!

Fall in love with Channing Tatum (Step-Up, GI Joe) in this year’s most romantic tear jerker Dear John. It’s love at first sight for John (Tatum) and college student Savannah (Mamma Mia’s Amanda Seyfried) when they meet by chance on the beach during a summer holiday. But their romance is threatened as the holiday ends, Savannah has to go back to college and John must return to life in the army and all that his duty entails. Brought together by love, will fate tear them apart?

This has been on my must see for me for a while now, it’s finally being released this Friday. Below are 2 new TV spot’s to wet your appetite, check em out!

Kick-Ass tells the story of average teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a comic-book fanboy who decides to take his obsession as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. As any good superhero would, he chooses a new name — Kick-Ass — assembles a suit and mask to wear, and gets to work fighting crime. There’s only one problem standing in his way: Kick-Ass has absolutely no superpowers.

His life is forever changed as he inspires a subculture of copy cats, is hunted by assorted violent and unpleasant characters, and meets up with a pair of crazed vigilantes, including an 11-year-old sword-wielding dynamo, Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) – and forges a friendship with another fledging super hero, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). But thanks to the scheming of a local mob boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong), that new alliance will be put to the test.

I really like the look of this, it looks hilarious. When done well there is no better way of shining a light on aspects of the human condition than through farce. Four Lions was screened at the the Sundance Film Festival and earned glowing reviews. Riz Ahmed is an actor I’ve been keeping my eye on the last few years, he was great in Shifty last year and in The Road to Guantanamo. Four Lions is in UK cinemas May 7^th, check out the synopsis and trailer below, I hope it lives up to my expectations!

Chris Morris’ “Four Lions” is a funny, thrilling comedy that illuminates modern jihadism through the prism of farce. It understands jihadists as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. What “This Is Spinal Tap” did for heavy metal and “Dr Strangelove” the Cold War, “Four Lions” does for the modern face of terrorism.

In a British city, four men have a secret plan. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is disillusioned about the treatment of muslims around the world and is determined to become a soldier. This is the most exciting idea Waj (Kayvan Novak) has ever heard. Better still it’s a no brainer because Omar does his thinking for him. Opposed to Omar and everyone else on earth is the white islamic convert Barry (Nigel Lindsay).  He’d realize he joined the cell to channel his nihilism – If he had half the self knowledge of a duck. Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) is the odd man out. He can make a bomb – but he can’t blow himself up just now coz his sick dad has “started eating newspaper”. Instead he’s training crows to fly bombs through windows.  This is what Omar has to deal with. They must strike a decisive blow on their own turf but can any of them strike a match without punching himself in the face?

Martin Scorsese’s latest film and fourth collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio tells the story of two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), who are summoned to a remote and barren island off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from the island’s fortress-like hospital for the criminally insane. If you like your films predictable and wrapped up in a little bow Shutter Island is definitely not for you, it’s twisted and creepy. Leonardo DiCaprio recently talked to me about Shutter Island, if you missed my interview with the living legend Martin Scorsese, check it out here. Shutter Island is in cinemas now

You must of put yourself through hell for this role, your character goes through some pretty dark places. What was the interest in doing that?

Leonardo DiCaprio: It was the nature of the material, when I first read the book and the screenplay it was a complex jigsaw puzzle, the line that reality starts and dreams begin for my characters past. His past is blurred but through the course of the movie you learn about different aspects of his mind. He’s learning the truth, it’s a truth about his past, that is a traumatic truth and in order to tell this story of this complicated character study we had to keep pushing these story lines further and further. In order for one set of circumstances to be believable we had to push emotional extremes in another set of circumstances. Me and Martin kept pushing my character to darker and darker places through the course of the film, it was surprising for both of us because reading from a screenplay there’s only so much you can extract. It shocked us the levels we had to put in to this.

It must have been weird finishing up on set then going about your normal life?

Leonardo DiCaprio: I have to admit going home I’d be in a sombre mood from some of the emotional extremes, that’s just the nature of playing a character with extreme emotional trauma. For the most part I do try to isolate myself from people when I’m filming anyway, there were a few weeks towards the end of filming where I had a laps of understanding where I was, because we kept pushing this guy further and further, day after day of rein-acting an event that was either a dream or that was either reality, I remember saying to Marty what am I doing right now, what’s going on, he just said don’t worry do the scene again (laughs) it’s ok keep pushing it. It’s great to have a guy you trust and you see as a mentor in situations like that because you are making yourself vulnerable. Through our relationship and the years with we’ve worked with each other it made it a lot easier.

It must have been demanding physically and mentally?

Leonardo DiCaprio: By shear necessity to survive the film making process I do switch off when I go home. Ultimately I’m challenged by these types of characters, maybe this is the most challenging role for me to date, physically yes but emotionally more so, it does give me great excitement though, this character is difficult to talk about because we want the audience to have that virgin experience, we were also conscious we were making a film that would have a completely different interpretation the second time watching it, that could take on different meanings. There’s a certain level of ambiguity at the ending of the film and in fact through a lot of it that could lend the audience to having a different experience on further viewing, that added even more of a challenge the way I played Teddy, pushing him to different extremes. It was one of the most challenging roles but at the same time I relish those experiences.

We’re used to seeing you play very intense and complex characters are we ever gonna see you in a comedy or a romance?

Leonardo DiCaprio: (Laughs) I don’t know really, I just respond to what I read,what I’ve read and took on has moved me some way and gained my interest, they throw me back to what moved me in cinema at a very early age. These were the type of characters I’ve also felt emotionally connected to and I think you never fully feel satisfied that you’ve found THAT role. I’m driven in my mind to be able to get close to some of the great master works of great performers I’ve seen in cinema since years past, I don’t know if that thirst will ever be quenched. I would love to try other genres but it depends what moves me emotionally.

Disney are going all out with this! The film’s release is 9 months away and there’s already been 3 posters, dozens of pics, a 2 minute plus trailer and even a special Tron Legacy event syndicated around the world. The last two time’s I’ve seen this much of marketing push was with Avatar and The Dark Knight, which if you’ve lived under a rock both made a gazillion $’s. People are responding great to the trailer, everyone I know is pretty much sold on it already, visually it looks like it’s pushing the envelope, everything I’ve seen so far from Tron Legacy has been to the highest quality, hopefully the film lives up to the hype!

TRON: LEGACY is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (GARRETT HEDLUND), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (JEFF BRIDGES), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant Qora (OLIVIA WILDE), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey of escape across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.

Martin Scorsese nestles himself comfortably in my top 5 directors of all time, which coming from a guy who changes his minds on these sort of things constantly means a lot! One thing I am sure of is that he’s one half of my greatest Director/Actor tandem in the history of cinema alongside Robert De Niro (Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood and Akira Kurosawa/Toshiro Mifune aren’t too far behind). Now after a couple months delay his latest film, Shutter Island is finally being released in the UK March 12^th. Personally I loved the film, with someone like Scorsese or anyone in the upper echelons of their respected profession, you know they fully deserve that spot when people continually compare and even review their latest works not on the merits of that particular field as a whole but against their previous work, which pitting up against Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Departed, Goodfellas and Casino is seemingly an impossible task! Shutter Island is in UK cinemas Friday, look out for my Leonardo DiCaprio interview as well.

What was more appealing to you with Shutter Island, the emotional and psychological subject matter or to mix up genres with the gothic mystery, horror aspects…?

Martin Scorsese: I think it’s really both in that order, the first element I connected with was the emotion, I felt very sympathetic for the characters, overwhelmed by the nature of the story, this film is hard to talk about because I don’t want to give anything away. It’s that and the vocabulary of cinemas past and the nature of Gothic literature, that opened the door for me in a way and was really enticing. The best way for me to tell the story was to utilize that vocabulary, the rain, the darkness, the framing all those sorts of things.

With your reputation as one of the greatest living directors how much pressure do you feel having those expectations?

Martin Scorsese: All I can do is the best work that I can. I need to work, I like to work, even though I complain about it, I just need to make the best film I can. I can’t think of award periods, it would be nice that a film is recognised like that but once your in the thick of battle you just try to get through it and make something of it that you can say yes I directed that film years from now and be happy with that film, you just try your best. Sometimes you go in with one thought in mind and one desire, in the case of Aviator it was to make this Hollywood spectacle, but quickly by the second or third week of shooting you just want to survive it (laughs), literally you just want to survive it. I also go through the editing process too, then when the films released we have to talk about it, so it’s all of that.

What other films influenced you with Shutter Island? How much of an influence was Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor on this film?

Martin Scorsese: Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor can only be conjured as a mantra because Sam’s Shock Corridor is a classic work of art. It comes from a unique experience of being Sam Fuller, yes there is this element of Shock Corridor hovering around the picture but never specifically. In fact we didn’t even screen it because it’s in me, it was a way of conjuring it up by saying it as we were going to shoot (laughs). But the first film I showed the actors was Laura by Otto Preminger in the sense of the war torn, war ravaged hero, world weariness so to the speak, the body language of Dana Andrews and the man who falls in love with a ghost. Then I showed Out Of The Past by Jacques Tourneur because of the trap, the puzzle, the mystery, the beauty of the poetry in the film. I also showed Let There Be Light by John Hustun, The Steel Helmet, many others as points of reference, primarily Laura though for the way Dana Andrews moved through the frame, shoulders were down, he never looked anyone in the eye and that wonderful scene when he loosens his tie and makes him self a drink and the door bell rings (laughs)

The film is unsettling right from the start with this menacing tone running through it, obviously the score is key to that, how complete is your vision of the film before you start shooting and how much do you rely upon the impact of others?

Martin Scorsese: The mood and tone of the picture and the atmosphere was in my head and in my blood in a way once I decided I wanted to do the picture, I had to find my way in that mood to choose, select and emphasize certain visual elements and sound. Ultimately that’s when I call in my collaborators, Robert Richardson on camera and Dante Ferretti on production design. Then I show them references, many different films, there might be just one scene I want to discuss with them but at least they can have reference points. It’s a constant process of pulling together the imagery, I was rather shaken by all the green trees, I’m allergic, I used to love seeing westerns and seeing the out doors but because I had asthma I couldn’t go any where, I could just watch it on film, the valleys, forests, I used to think it was fantastic but I couldn’t ever go in there (laughs). But we did it in this film, I was actually rock climbing at 7am which was quite unique but back to my point the colour of the leaves disturbed me so we had to work on that but on the other hand we didn’t want to drench it in a depressing tone. For me the key image is the boat coming through the fog in the beginning, it was something I imagined and liked, it was interesting breaking through the mystery, where is he, who is he, there’s a lot of good questions with that shot. Robert Richardson and Dante were remarkable as was Rob Legato on special visual effects, Robbie Robertson with the film score and Thelma Schoonmaker with editing.

I’ve been really looking forward to this, the first Iron Man film helped raise the bar of Comic Book inspired films, along with The Dark Knight (to a lesser extent but it raised the bar all the same). This trailer has added to my excitement,  it’s rare with a film that I like EVERY actor, especially an action film. Also I’m extra jealous that Scarlett Johanssen is spoken for, Ryan Reynold’s I just want to put it out there, for 10 seconds after watching the trailer I truly hated you. Look out for this May 7^th.

Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark, the wealthy playboy whose exploits as Iron Man are now public knowledge after his admission at the close of the first film. In the follow-up, Stark is pitted against his Russian arch nemesis, Whiplash (Mickey Rourke), and corporate rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell). Also making their Marvel debuts are Scarlett Johansson as the sexy Russian spy Black Widow, and Don Cheadle, who takes over the role of Colonel James Rhodes from Terrence Howard