Robot & Frank
Directed by: Jake Schreier
Written by: Christopher D. Ford
Starring Frank Langella, Peter Sarsgaard, James Marsden, Liv Tyler, Susan Sarandon, Jeremy Strong
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Rated PG-13 | 90 Minutes
Release Date: August 24, 2012

I don’t know much about Jack Schreier. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like anyone else does, either. According to IMDb, Schreier is the ex-keyboardist for Francis and the Lights, a pop-synth indie band that has toured with the likes of Drake, MGMT, and Ke$ha.

Aside from Robot & Frank, Schreier’s only other directorial credit is a 2005 short film, Christopher Ford Sees a Film, in which Christopher D. Ford (Robot & Frank‘s writer) sees a terrible film that presumably affects him deeply. As for Ford’s work as a screenwriter, he’s got a couple of projects in the works, including Eli Roth’s Grindhouse-inspired horror slasher, Thanksgiving.

I say all this only because it is extremely rare to watch a smart, thoughtful, and altogether well-made film like Robot & Frank and discover it was the feature-length debut of an earnest, young filmmaker and a no-doubt talented scribe. There are plenty of great first films by directors, but Robot & Frank feels like the work of an established, tenured filmmaker – someone who has matured and refined his style through other films.

The premise of Schreier and Ford’s film is simple, and delightfully so. Set in the near future, Frank, an ex-convict and master thief (Frank Langella), receives a gift from his son, Hunter (James Marsden): a robot butler programmed to look after him.

The last time I saw such wonderful chemistry between a human and a robot was Duncan Jones’ Moon. While Frank and Robot doesn’t possess the same dark tones that Moon had, it does have a lighter and more whimsy look at the relationship between man and machine. Since the film was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, I have been waiting to see some form of footage from it. Now, Samuel Goldwyn Films has released the first trailer for the film, which you can check out below.

Based on the reviews I have read and the trailer that I just saw, Robot and Frank has a lot of heart, and there is just enough tomfoolery in the film to keep me interested. In it Frank, an aging jewel thief, is given a robot caretaker. When he finds a reason to take up the crime he retired from, he trains his robot caretaker in the craft of stealing jewels.

Another big name actor in Susan Sarandon has been added to the growing impressive cast of Oliver Stone‘s sequel Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. The movie is a follow-up to 1987’s Wall Street, which followed a young stock trader who becomes snagged in the dirty (and highly-profitable) underbelly of the trading world when big timer Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) takes him under his paper wings.

In the sequel, Douglas returns as Gecko, who is just being released after a long prison sentence. In order to reconnect with his daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), he helps out her fiance (Shia LaBeouf), who is fittingly a new talent in the world of stock trading.

The newest name to join the impressive cast for Oliver Stone‘s long-coming sequel to 1987’s Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, is Frank Langella. The great actor will join the returning Michael Douglas and other newcomer actors like Shia Labeouf, Javier Bardem, and possibly Josh Brolin, if he accepts an offer that supposedly went out to him.

Langella will reportedly be playing Lewis Zabel, an old broker and mentor to Shia Labeouf’s character, who’s a young gun on Wall Street. We’ve heard that two or three of the characters would be mentors so far, so that makes it a tad hazy as to what exactly is going on here.

Frost/Nixon
Directed by Ron Howard
Starring Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones, Matthew MacFadyen
Rated R
Release Date: December 5, 2008

In 1977, just a few years removed from the only resignation by a U.S. President in the history of our country, Richard Nixon agreed to be interviewed by a moderately successful British TV personality, David Frost. Over the course of 28 hours of interviews, Nixon eventually apologized for the scandals of his administration. Not before or since has Nixon publicly addressed the issues surrounding Watergate.

Take a second to let that sink in. It’s only been 30 years since the interviews but the way we get our news today has changed so drastically that a news event like this would be impossible to achieve in today’s news environment. The advent of the internet and the 24-hour cable news channel has completely changed the way we get our news. But in 1977, when network anchors ruled the news on the Big Three, a foreign journalist against the odds scored what is still today considered the most important political interview ever.

Frost/Nixon was adapted from the 2007 Broadway play of same name that focused on the interviews and the preparation leading up to them. The outcome of the interviews is what made them as successful as they have become, but any time you have a movie based on actual events, the conclusion ends up being irrelevant. Since that element is removed as the dramatic driving force, the filmmakers had to rely on good old fashion storytelling and performances to push the film.