CLOUD ATLAS: Lana Wachowsky & Tom Tykwer & Andy Wachowsky: OCT 26

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Aloysius J. Gleek:

The raw video of the press conference (51:48)

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnG5zbg8NoM&feature=related[/youtube]
Streamed live on Sep 9, 2012 by tiff

http://tiff.net/festival

Front-Ranger:
Very entertaining. While Tom was speaking, I couldn't take my eyes off Ben Whitshaw!

oilgun:
I've been in love with Ben since Perfume

Aloysius J. Gleek:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/cloud-atlas-toronto-film-festival-8122033.html

Toronto Film Festival
Cloud Atlas

By Kaleem Aftab
Tuesday 11 September 2012

Susan Sarandon and Jim Broadbent in Cloud Atlas

A bold, ambitious and fun attempt to adapt David Mitchell's time-jumping novel, Cloud Atlas is a return to form with the Wachowskis. The novel contains the same big idea that commonly crops up in the Wachowski oeuvre, whether as director or producers, that humans should look beyond the physical realm and understand that space and time are malleable.

Whether that's true or not is arguable, but one thing's for sure, it does make for fantastical movies--not even Terry Gilliam in his pomp was this grandiose. As with the work of Gilliam, the Wachowskis often have a problem with self-control.

The success of the original Matrix movie has been like a poisoned chalice as it gave them final cut on all their projects and left to their own film-making devices their work has often been self-indulgent and unintelligible.

Here they seem anchored by the use of Tom Tykwer as co-director, whose film Run Lola Run successfully told a tale from various perspectives and Mitchell's text. Six separate through-the-ages stories are conjoined: a sea adventure from the mid 19th century, a 1930s meeting of composers, a journalist investigating corrupt corporations in the 1970s, a present day tale of an author publicly murdering a critic, a futuristic tale of rebellion in a totalitarian society and an undefined postapocalyptic dystopia.

The common theme is that each tale is about a search for liberty and truth. The big difference from the novel is in the structure. While the book tells each story consecutively and then as stories within stories, the movie crisscrosses the tales jumping through space and time at will.

Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, Doona Bae, Jim Sturgess and Keith David all play multiple roles in the film. The action starts with a shot of the stars before focusing on a mumbling man lost at sea.

Underneath all the prosthetics seems to be Tom Hanks? Part of the fun of this movie adaptation is trying to work out what star name is under the make-up. At one point, Berry shows up as a white aristocratic Jew, Whishaw as a blonde woman.

As a device, the multiple roles allow the viewer to immediately know which are the heroes and villains. Ultimately, this is a film about ideas rather than plot. It’s a tricky marriage between blockbuster action and textbook philosophy.

Although the space opera is occasionally bumpy and disorientating, the end result is intoxicating.

Aloysius J. Gleek:

Updated Cast list (in Progress)

Tom Hanks is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   Dr. Henry Goose
   in Letters from Zedelghem: (?)
   a blackmailing hotel clerk
   in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:
   Isaac Sachs
   in The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish:
   Dermot 'Duster' Hoggins
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   "Timothy Cavendish"
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   Valleysman Zachry and
   Old Zachry (30 Years Later)
   in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:
   a Narrator
   and ?

Adam Siviter is Hoggins Impersonator
   and ?

   Halle Berry is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   a Moriori
   (an enslaved Island Native)
   in Letters from Zedelghem:
   Jocasta Ayrs
   in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:
   (and who has a comet-shaped birthmark
   between sholderblade and collarbone):
   Luisa Rey
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   an elderly (male)
   Korean Doctor
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   (and who has a comet-shaped birthmark
   between sholderblade and collarbone):
   Meronym
   and ?

Hugo Weaving is in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:
   Bill Smoke
   in The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish:
   Nurse Noakes
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   a Korean Pervert ('Control'?)
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   Old Georgie
   and ?

   Jim Sturgess is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   Adam Ewing
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   Hae-Joo Im
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   Adam Bailey
   and ?

Doona Bae is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   Tilde Ewing
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   (and who has a comet-shaped birthmark
   between sholderblade and collarbone):
   Sonmi-451,
   a clone 'fabricant'
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   The goddess Sonmi
   and ?

   Jim Broadbent is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   a Sea Captain
   a blind violinist
   in Letters from Zedelghem:
   Vyvyan Ayrs
   in The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish:
   Timothy Cavendish
   a Narrator
   and ?

   Robin Morrissey is Young Cavendish
   and ?

Ben Whishaw is in Letters from Zedelghem:
   (and who has a comet-shaped birthmark
   between sholderblade and collarbone):
   Robert Frobisher

   a blonde woman
   (Hugh Grant's wife??)
   and ?

   James D'Arcy is in Letters from Zedelghem:
   Rufus Sixsmith (young)
   in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:
   Rufus Sixsmith (old)
   "Rufus Sixsmith"
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   The Archivist
   and ?

Xun Zhou is in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   Yoona-939
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   Rose Bailey
   and ?

   Keith David is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   Kupaka
(the Maori Chieftain)
   in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:
   Joe Napier
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   Ankor Apis
   and ?

David Gyasi is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   Autua
(the escaped Moriori Native)
   and ?

   Hugh Grant is in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:
   Alberto Grimaldi
   in The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish:
   Timothy Cavendish's
   brother
   in An Orison of Sonmi~451:
   Seer Rhee
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   a Cannibal (Kona Chief)
   and ?

Susan Sarandon is in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:
   Madame Horrox
   in The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish:
   Ursula
   in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After:
   Yellowface (the Abbess?)
   a Narrator
   and ?

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